


Resonance

by GBD



Category: From Beyond (1986), LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:35:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 33
Words: 72,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24706927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GBD/pseuds/GBD
Summary: The makers of Fourth Eye see their research into the decades-old Pretorius Resonator as a way to make and sell “downloadable Viagra,” a proprietary broadcast wavelength to stimulate the pineal gland for a variety of effects, both beneficial and recreational. But Dr. Katherine McMichaels, institutionalized since the fatal events of 1986, still sees the legions of creatures the resonator makes tangible. The makers of Fourth Eye need Katherine to perfect their billion-dollar idea. Katherine needs closure on that chaos that destroyed her life. They all need a way to control the machine. But once activated, the cacophony of horror and death that surrounds the device makes it nearly impossible to switch off ...
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a NaNiWriMo 2013 effort. I always liked the film and wanted to patch a few holes in the plot (Where did the explosives come from? Solved!) and take Katherine's story forward. I did a fair bit of research into medications, diagnoses, New England history, Orgone boxes, dream machines, and Lovecraft geography. I've tweaked and pruned over the years and decided it was time to be released into the wild. I hope fans of From Beyond enjoy it. If you haven't seen the movie, this story will catch you up pretty quick. We start at the film's last few minutes, and Chapter Six recaps the film from Katherine's POV.
> 
> About the Rape/Non-Con tag, I do not go into detailed descriptions in this, but an assault occurs in the film, and Katherine recounts it in a perfunctory manner here. There is also a very abbreviated parallel scene later in this story.
> 
> Thanks in advance for reading.

The photo of Katherine that ran the next day on the front page of the Arkham Tribune was a close-up caught in mid-scream. The explosion and the deaths occurred too late to make the morning edition, but they warranted a rare afternoon supplement. It was a thin edition featuring no ads but filled with hastily prepared obituaries of the five people dead within nine hours. The Tribune was competing with the local network affiliates to get its name onto the national wires for both the number and nature of deaths.

The image that accompanied the coverage on evening newscasts and follow-up articles across the country for weeks to follow were of this young, disheveled woman laughing at full throat in front of a house in full conflagration with a dead man’s blood smeared around her mouth.

The blood stretched down Katherine's chin and neck to the collar of her turtleneck, a slightly brighter shade of red. Those looking at the photo the next day and for years to follow couldn’t see the color; the Tribune was still a black-and-white paper in those days. Small, seeping bandages that predated the house fire framed her cheeks and forehead, partially hidden by matted blonde hair singed at her shoulders. The few drops of blood on her jacket were hidden by its autumnal pattern and all but invisible even in the bright light of a multi-story wooden house at full roar. But you could see the blood on her hands, spread wide with fingers locked and wrists bent back at right angles. None of it was hers. All the blood belonged to the body found inside the house once the fire was extinguished.

There wasn’t much of the body left by that point, of course. The windbreaker had melted onto the flesh and bones, sealing the torso in jet black. Stray lining fibers survived the fire and clung to the body like tiny feathers. The terribly thin hospital pants it wore vanished in the flames almost immediately, leaving the bare legs to suffer the hunger of the fire. The feet were a confusion of shoe plastics and bone.

The body was found on its stomach at the foot of the stairs which wound up the supporting column of the first and second floors. They curled up and over the foyer and along the second floor’s corridor of large rooms and lead to the attic stretching the entire breadth of the house. It was from the attic that Katherine had leapt out a window to escape the explosion and other things she would divulge later. She had run upstairs in a blind terror after discovering the body. It had been perfectly normal in appearance from the shoulders to the shoes.

But the head as gone, neatly clipped off the neck. What was left resembled thick taffy twisted to a lumpy point and slathered in a colorless resin. The resin didn’t survive the fire. Only Katherine survived the fire, and the more philosophical spectators would argue that point.

When she landed outside the window, Katherine’s knees exploded. It wasn’t that far a fall, but the push of the explosion had blown her farther than she expected, and her body reflexively stretched for the ground. She landed on her heels, and the force cracked through her legs. She was found by the neighbors sitting with her legs under her and turned to the side as if she was settled on the side of a brook. She was staring at her legs and keening in surprise; the adrenaline had shushed the pain. Her kneecaps had burst through her dark blue denim jeans. She had spent the house’s final five minutes screaming, and her voice was shot, her throat stretched dry and patchy. When the neighbors approached her with cautious sympathy, she was reduced to hiccups of breath that made her frame lurch. Her cry stuttered in the cold air of the night until she tried to talk.

“What happened in there,” the first neighbor asked. This was not Katherine’s neighbor. Nor was it Katherine’s house. She had never laid eyes on it before two days ago. It belonged to a man who had died the week before. His body was found in the attic Katherine just escaped, and his body, like the one pulled from the ash, was found on its belly with its head turned around and plucked. That head, also, was never found.

Katherine had not seen the neighbor woman before. She was older, round in a down robe and clutching a poodle. Katherine required a few moments to process what was in front of her: a small pack of people in robes and pajamas, their flat-soled slippers soaking up the dew from the grass. They were all gray and ruffled. They had leapt from their beds at the sound of the explosion and the orange light creeping into their bedrooms through the blinds. Fumbling with their glasses, they threw open their nightstand drawers to find the numbers of the police and fire departments. Even as late as 1986, when the so-called Arkham Slaughter occurred, 911 wasn’t available in all towns. Calls made and directions given, they stomped downstairs and out the doors to see what help they could offer. Or simply to gape. Some, perhaps this woman with the poodle, were inflated with vindication; that house had broadcast a spectrum of lights and sounds for months now, and the police shrugged off the late-night complaints until the very recent discovery of the headless body in the attic.

These were the people facing Katherine, standing over her and staring at her or the growing fire that quickly branched from the attic and swallowed the rest of the house. They pulled their robes tighter around them even in the swelling heat of the fire. Some clung to their spouses in the unspoken gratitude of such a fate befalling someone else’s home. There was little sympathy for the inhabitants. The two men were an odd sort. No one knew their names. They were seldom seen, leaving the neighbors to cobble together theories of their activities based on the random riot of tones -- aural and visual -- that would peek from the attic windows even after they had been painted flat black during in the winter. Sometimes people claimed they heard shrieks of women coming from what they assumed were the bedrooms. Maybe it was a television. They weren’t sure. But they had notions. Those ideas seemed a bit more credible now in the sudden daylight of the fire and this young woman, bandaged and flinching in the grass, escaping a certain horrible death at the cost of her legs. Then she spoke, and those notions – passed at weekly evenings of rook and cribbage or whispered at occasional evening cookouts as grandkids played Wiffle Ball – seemed very much as real as the heat and wind bursting from the house.

“What happened in there,” Janice asked as she muzzled her poodle, Bunny. Bunny was desperate to get on the ground and run back to its home. It had run into this house the night the police found the first body, the older of the occupants. Janice’s mind flashed back to that night.

Bunny had ignored Janice’s cries and pleas to return that first night, forcing her owner to creep into the unlocked house to retrieve her. Bunny was drawn to the house by noises that bothered Janice enough to call the police just a few minutes earlier. But the poodle could hear things outside the range of the humans in the neighborhood, and the dog rocketed into the house with a speed Janice had never seen from her. That speed forced Janice to follow her inside. It scared her. More than the possible causes of the noises and lights. More than the muffled thumps she heard from upstairs as she tip-toed up the stairs. More even than the possibility of actually meeting and talking to the two men seen now and then arriving at the house. The neighborhood had ideas about those two. Those ideas became outright fears in Janice. She recalled the screams from the bedroom. What might they do to a dog and neighbor found uninvited in their home?

Janice made it to the closed attic door. Bunny was there, scratching at the kickplate, drooling and snuffling. The sounds were behind that door. What were low and curious when heard from the safety of Janice’s living room were insistent at this proximity. The lingering mystery of the avenue pulsed on the other side of the door, but Janice didn’t want any resolutions just then. She wanted to get Bunny back home and out of this house of suspicions, filled with crashes and echoes and now shouts of men from behind that door. Fearful shouts of alarm and confusion. This was not the time to settle questions. Janice scooped up Bunny and cooed in her ears. She swaddled the dog in her round arms and robe sleeves, and she offered assurances of safety meant as much for her as Bunny. She turned to go back down the stairs, and that’s when the axe crashed through the door.

Janice screamed and dropped Bunny. The door flew open, and out stumbled the younger occupant, who gripped the wall to stay upright.

“Oh God. Oh my God,” he cried as Janice hurried to the stairs. She couldn’t hear him over her own screams. Her hands were at either side of her head, alighting on her ears to blunt the noises emanating from the now-open attic. Machinery toppling and splaying on wooden floors. A lamp chain clinking off the metal shade as it twirled under its ceiling moorings. And the sounds of running footsteps behind her. Faster and louder, they were right behind Janice and now beside her as the young man shoved past her on the stairs, bounding three and four at a time and now out the two front doors, stopping only long enough to throw them open and race down the long driveway toward the garden gate. It was there he was met by the police. The car lights resembled the flashes that had erupted from the attic a few minutes before. He shut his eyes, and the flashes repeated under his eyelids as he was slammed onto the car hood.

“Oh God,” he yelled. “Oh my God. My God.” He wasn’t aware of the police. He hadn’t shown any sign of realizing Janice was there either. She stood just outside the door, watching the police handcuff the young man who had hacked at the door with an ax just inches from her head. They would figure this out. They would stop all that racket, and they would take away that man, and they would make things safe again for her and for--

Bunny. Bunny was inside the house, now silent. Janice turned and craned to see if Bunny was in sight on the steps. Perhaps if she called, Bunny would bounce down and back into her arms, and they could go back to bed. But Bunny was in the attic, Janice knew. And Janice was too scared to go after her, to go back inside and up those stairs to the room that now terrified that young man.

It was Bunny who found in that room the body, what would soon become known as the first body found in this house of fear and sound. The house now burning to the foundations. She bent over the young woman in the grass.

“What happened in there,” Janice now asked as she hovered over Katherine.

Katherine slowly turned up to Janice and blinked her way out of the stupor. There was no way to explain then what she had escaped in that high, dark room. It was that thing which had driven her up the stairs and way from the headless body in the windbreaker and hospital pants and borrowed shoes. The body of the young man who had run out of that attic and past Janice just a week before. The young man Katherine had met soon after and whose mind she had hoped to salvage. He had seen the horrible thing in the attic the night he ran past Janice. They had seen it together a few nights ago and seen it again tonight before the explosion that propelled her through glass and air. Before her legs were ruined. But she was here now in the dew and debris. She was somehow alive with the heat and glow of the house crumbling around its unearthly contents.

All of this jammed through what seemed like a funnel behind her throat as she looked up to Janice. Silence crept out of her. She forced her jaw to move, to approximate speaking actions in hopes it would let the words out. She had survived. She had made the terrible thing go away. But she couldn’t save the young man.

“It,” she started. Her voice sounded all wrong. It could have come from someone else. Someone behind her, maybe. She only knew it was hers because she could feel the words in her skull and ears.

“It,” she tried again, and she knew she had to escort the meaning of words to Janice and those around her. They would not make sense. She tilted her head forward and spoke slowly to help Janice welcome the idea.

“It … ate… him.” And here it was, the truth of the moment and the only thing that mattered. She was introduced to the young man to piece him back together, and inside the fire what was left of him lay irrevocably broken. She made this happen. She was responsible as much for his death as she was of the life of a third man stolen in that attic just the day before. None escaped that house unscathed. She had barely made it alive.

The tears came now, squeezed out by exhaustion. They slipped to her jaw and down her shirt, dragging behind them the blood from her mouth. His blood.

The laugh started as muscles spasms. Her cries and her physical fatigue shook her body, and the laugh evolved from there. It surprised her. It embarrassed her. She saw Janice’s confusion. All the sympathy drained away from Janice’s face, replaced by a squint that revealed disgust and fear. If Janice had seen what Katherine beheld, she thought, what expression would she wear then? If she thought Katherine laughing in the dew with her shattered legs and bandaged face was vile – monstrous, even -- what would she think of what recently had occupied the attic?

That was the thought that broke Katherine. She embraced the laugh now. She let it slip around her and warm her even more than the fire behind her. She heard it louder despite the ruined throat, and Katherine elevated it. She shoved hard through her ribs to amplify it to the assembled neighbors who thought Katherine was the worst thing they could possibly imagine on this night. There were much worse things just yards from their beds until a few minutes ago. Katherine had made it go away. Katherine had saved them all, and they had no clue, and that launched the laugh even more.

But what truly punctuated the laugh was the realization that, despite the destruction of the house, Katherine could see motion behind the neighbors’ shocks of hair and the silent, exchanged glances as they stepped away from her. They wanted very little now to do with this laughing, broken woman who now seemed more dangerous than the flaming house and the embers catching the wind and fading over their roofs and TV antennas. They didn’t see what swam behind them in the black air between them and the maples, slipping into the fire’s light through the neighbors’ shadows.

Katherine saw it though. Not as clearly as she could within the hour when it grabbed her throat or chased her upstairs or relished in her fear as the attic filled with sparks. Still, it was there, above the ground and drifting as it squabbled with itself, the pink-and-tan limbs crashing into itself and stretching and disappearing into aqueous skin. Emerging from the writhing mass, a bat-like wing struggled to manipulate the air for leverage. It was a dragon of lumps and bubbles and simulations of human bone and viscera. It was a human body turned inside out and inflated, and these neighbors had no idea it was there. It made no sound, and the trees could easily be seen through it.

It was a ghost of a monster, and Katherine had briefly taken solace in the wreck of her legs and the blood on her fingers that she had made it disappear forever. But it was here, and she was the only one who knew. And, for a moment, she thought one emergent eye had met hers and narrowed in anger and appetite. It wasn’t gone after all. The young man died for nothing. The other man she knew so briefly had died for nothing. All the meaning of her life up til now had died for nothing.

That was when Katherine lifted her chin, looked Janice squarely in the face, and laughed loud enough to cover the sounds of the fire engines racing up the hill.


	2. Chapter 2

"I want to talk to you about Dr. Katherine McMichaels."

Doctor Reiner let the statement hover between him and the slim young man across the desk who delivered it. As the hospital's Vice Dean for Clinical Investigation, he had endured many a conversation that began this way. Specifically in the dozen years or so since he had been assigned to oversee Katherine's welfare, all manner of investigators and reporters and even a half-dozen potential suitors had come through his door. These were just the ones he had encountered. His predecessors joked about requiring goalie pads, working as club bouncers, and playing the mother in The Glass Menagerie in the days and months following the deaths of six people in 1986. 

Even now, two decades removed, it wasn't unusual to receive a call each week from someone wanting to talk to her. The calls that included any mention of her tabloid nicknames were immediately disconnected. The more respectable visitors sat in this same chair now occupied by the slim young man. None had ever gone further. None had actually seen Katherine, not even the ones who would scan the office for photographs of her, perhaps as a Christmas momento or the display of a prized catch.

Dr. Reiner's office had no such trophies. He knew his office was too easily accessed by anyone walking the corridors of the office wing. A janitor, another doctor's family member who just dropped by for lunch, anyone who could find a trinket to sell online for the murky collector clubs. It had happened once before to a predecessor who subsequently resigned his position when the item was bought by a cable TV host and held up as proof that the hospital was using the black market for invisible profits. If the host had also possessed any degree of national prominence, the charge might have gained traction. 

The staff laughed it off. Some suggested a walk-by viewing room could pay for a new pool behind the parking lot. Dr. Reiner stifled that. He was responsible for her care, and he extended his guardianship to her reputation at the hospital and in the community at luncheon speeches or at facility gatherings. To the world who remembered her, she was a Doctor Gone Wrong, the killer of six. To a few, she was proof of the inherent evils of psychiatry. Some of those came to the doctor's door a few times too. Those conversations quickly grew loud and just as quickly ended with an orderly escorting the visitor away. The bouncer had bouncers.

Doctor Reiner couldn't tell by the look of the slim young man which quadrant he represented. His suit spoke of money and current fashion. It was not a suit asked to stay clean and intact for years on end, as Reiner's were. It fit well too although he wore a tie much too thin with a knot that was barely perceptible. Reiner hated those ties and knots. He always admired the wide Windsor knots of his father and uncles, the hulking pyramids that seemed to hold the whole suit onto a body as if it were a cape.

He tried to imagine what kind of car might be owned by men who wore such a small tie. Something small and red that looked like a toy, probably. Did they know when they arrived here that those ties were the fashion of the day when Katherine was admitted? Was that intentional? Were they subtly suggesting they had an appreciation for the cultural context that might have driven a promising young female psychiatrist to behead two men, for instance? Fashionable vouchsafes, perhaps? Well, we'll see.

"Dr. McMichaels is currently undergoing a range of therapies for the treatment of schizophrenia,” Reiner started. “She has no comment for the public. She is prohibited by both court mandate and medical prognosis to speak to the public."

"Yes, sir. I understand." The slim young man made no adjustment in the chair. He seemed to feel no need to change tactics. “But I wanted to speak about her. To you, if possible."

"I am limited in what this facility may divulge about Dr. McMichaels's treatment," Reiner said over his glasses. "And if you want to speak about the legal case, the DA's office is where you want to go."

"They referred me to you."

"Ah." And by "ah," he meant "of course they did." The district attorney's office had instructed everyone with ties to the case to direct the curious to the hospital with the same disdain with which they had wiped their hands of her once she was deemed medically unfit to stand trial. The DA and the police wanted blood for blood in the death of Sergeant Buford Brownlee.

A Boston College football hero and second-string linebacker for the Patriots, "Bubba" Brownlee was one of Arkham's favorite sons. With a quick smile and gentle strength, he was beloved even by the townsfolk who had never seen him play football. Many of his fellow officers had played alongside him in high school or watched him with their fathers on TV. His death, both by such bizarre means and in conjunction with the five others of that week in October 1986, justified virtually any invective lobbed at Katherine. When the ruling came down that Katherine would receive no jail time but instead be placed in a hospital, the consensus said that the pretty, young academic was getting away with murder. The local hardware store owner removed all the rope from his shelves. Just in case the locals got twitchy.

Katherine was named a "special inclusion" of the facility after she was sentenced by the court. As an involuntary commitment, she was deemed gravely disabled and a danger to herself and others. The facility worked in conjunction with the DA's office to establish a resident evaluator to oversee her therapy and report to the DA's office on her progress. The district attorney, Loudon Franklin, decided that if he couldn't mount her head on the wall, he'd keep her in the mind of the public with regular updates provided by the hospital. That usually took the form of "and what they're telling me now is," suggesting the doctors were shielding one of their own.

Even if she had never worked at the facility, had indeed been too young to develop any meaningful connection to any peers who did work there, she still had been admitted there just hours before three of its employees were killed. To many, and to the convenience of a public official looking to raise his profile with finger-pointing and righteous indignation, her diagnosis and successful legal plea smacked of concealment. Perhaps they all knew beforehand she was a danger and did nothing. Perhaps she assimilated the disorder from her patients. Dr. Katherine McMicheals, a specialist in schizophrenia now diagnosed with the condition just as she faces capital punishment for six murders. Perhaps she was studying fellow sufferers to learn best how to hide her own symptoms until she no longer keep her impulses at bay.

It was ugly theatre at the cost of the hospital's reputation, and the convenient boogeyman of schizophrenia -- thanks to TV movies-of-the-week and soap operas -- conjured dread of split personalities. That perception launched Katherine to tabloid superstardom that formed an ionic bond with the legitimate media coverage of the six deaths and the true understanding of schizophrenia. It forced mental health agencies nationwide to hire specialized spokesmen just to counter the growing rhetoric. It spurred a new rash of books blaming schizophrenia on everything from hair dye to feminism and created a small cottage industry of cheap horror movies featuring actresses playing the murderer when just the year before they were the co-eds chased by the monsters. The movie Sybil returned to rotation on basic cable.

Nationally, the few years after Katherine was sentenced to commitment was a good time to be specialist in schizophrenia as Doctor Reiner was when he first arrived at the facility. Because of the relatively small size of the community which hosted the then-new facility, the role of evaluator for Dr. McMichaels was highly visible for much longer. His predecessors and he himself were recognized by sight, thanks to anniversary articles in the Tribune or on the local affiliates. Those reporters would appear, as the slim young man did, at the facility's reception area. Directed to this office wing, Madelyne the administrative assistant would smile, set appointment times, and inform Reiner that his presence was requested. He could cancel if he chose. He did that a few times after he took the position, and that only served to convince eager reporters that he was hiding a significant change in her condition. They would look into the cameras with knitted brows and suggest Dr. McMichaels was soon to be released perhaps with a diagnosis of complete recovery. One such reporter had the inspiration to film his presumptions in front of a school fronted with glass doors. The facility responded quickly to that, encouraging some to suspect again that Reiner was hiding something. Which he was.

He knew, just as he knew his name, the slow stiffness in his bones, and the certainty of the rotation of the earth, that Dr. Katherine McMichaels was not schizophrenic. What she had was much more perplexing, much more alarming, than any distortion of that condition painted onto the motives of a film villain. And it was Reiner's hope that this fact would accompany him and Katherine McMichaels to the grave.

What he found in her mind was not a chemical imbalance but a physical abnormality that made her description of those October nights that much more credible. Schizophrenia treatments were her best chance for stability and the best chance for himself and this facility to retain their reputations. The hospital received significant state moneys to accommodate her special inclusion; a reversal of diagnosis this late in her treatment would threaten further financial courtesies and again raise the spectre of collusion. No, better for all to leave that hidden in her brain.  
So for those visitors, including the slim young man, Reiner presented the case always with their agreement of her diagnosis intact. And if he could help rearrange their presumptions of the presented condition, that was his good deed for the day. Perhaps Katherine could serve a beneficial public function after all.

"I can only offer a synopsis of her case, then." He sat back in his chair and overlapped his fingers on his stomach. He tipped his head and glanced at the ceiling, letting muscle memory deliver the lines. He took a deep breath and recited.

"Dr. McMichaels was admitted in October 1986, displaying symptoms of shock and hypnagogic closed-eye visualizations. She also suffered compound fractures in both legs. After observation of several first-rank symptoms, the facility's neurology staff at the time diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia. She has undergone a series of treatments to manage her symptoms, and she remains in our care under order of the court. All I am able to disclose is that she has received a number of operations over the years to repair her legs and is sufficiently ambulatory after years of rehab."

"Sufficiently?" asked the slim young man.

"She has a pronounced limp in her right leg but can manage stairs. She can feel changes in the weather. The number of operations is based more on the advancement of procedures in the past 25 years than in her response to the initial operations."

"Well, that's --"

"I can talk about her knees all day, but I'm afraid I am legally restricted from talking anything above them." The doctor smiled with tucked lips and raised his eyebrows. "I'm probably no help at all." He wanted to add the man's last name as punctuation, but for the life of him he couldn't remember it. He wondered if he could end this conversation and see him out the door without having to admit that.

"Doctor Reiner, I represent a venture that perhaps can offer diagnostic assistance and therapeutic options for Dr. McMichaels." He pulled out a business card from his inner coat pocket and offered it to Reiner, sideways as he might hold a dinner fork. Reiner was relieved he didn't present it between two straight fingers. He hated that. That won this slim young man some points, and his card revealed him to be a Kevin Seaborn from Fourth Eye Applications. It was a plastic card, not paper. Translucent and extravagant. That lost some points. Was this the first salesman to sniff around Katherine's case? He'd have to ask the others at tomorrow night's potluck.

"Mister Seaborn, I'm not the person you would speak with to introduce consultation. Nor is this facility soliciting for assistance with the case. Dr. McMichaels is responding positively to treatment. We see no need to move her in a different direction."

"Do you see her able to one day be discharged?" Seaborn still hadn't adjusted his body in the chair, appearing to expect the deflection.  
"Mister Seaborn, I can't -- " He was using the name too much now, conspicuously trying to make up for forgetting it.

"I come here hat in hand to offer a complement to her present treatment, doctor, on behalf of my employer. But also on behalf of myself." Now he shifted his weight to the back of the chair and leaned forward. "Members of my family have been diagnosed with schizophrenia in the past, and we've gone through the prolonged treatment and cycles of medications. Aripiprazole, Iloperidone, Pericyazine. My cousin went through a few months of Zotepine, and the seizures were awful. So I’m speaking personally here, and I again appreciate your time. Our articles have appeared in several alternative and complementary journals and have met with positive responses."

"Perhaps you could present your ideas through our facility board."

"Perhaps you could help us make that happen."

"Have they not responded to your requests?"

"My conversation with you is our first request."

"Mister Seaborn, this is not a smart first move. You're asking me to advocate your company without presenting me with your ideas or proof a clinical trial. Our patients are not test subjects. Have you submitted your therapy for approval by a health authority? Institutional Review Board? The USDA?"

"This is unorthodox," He rested his elbows on his knees and spread out his hands, broadcasting his idea as he spoke it. "But we are in the process of application and acceptance by a handful of oversight committees. We’re very close to acceptance at the Amfortas Clinic in Manhattan. We were hoping your facility would allow us to approach Dr. McMichaels as a potential trial subject.

“Now, normally, yes, we would go straight to your board, but because of the nature of her circumstance -- medical and legal -- the board would inevitably come to you as her consultant to consider our idea. I decided to approach you directly. Eliminate the middleman."

"And then I would ask the board for permission," the doctor placed his palms on the edge of his desk in a bracing gesture against Seaborn's pitch. "I have rounds in a few minutes, Mister Seaborn, but you're welcome to leave with the office manager any materials you wish me to look through. I'll look through them and consider it. But you haven't told me even the nature of the treatment as it relates to schizophrenia."

"I'll leave our packet," Seaborn raised out of the chair as he held up a sturdy folder, "but I'd rather not prejudice you against the treatment by describing it. Please approach it cold and examine our findings."  
Reiner sighed and chuckled at the same time. "You're certainly working the dramatic angle." He stood up to match Seaborn and spread his hands before patting his hips to suggest a polite gesture of compliance would be made. "I of course can make no assurances." He offered his hand across the desk.

"Of course, Doctor," he took Reiner 's hand and gave it a small pump. "I hope also you'll consider the treatment as viable outside Dr. McMichael's diagnosis. Or rather, I hope you favor it despite the diagnosis."

"I'm sorry?" The handshake held.

"Doctor Reiner, we recognize the difficult position in which you found yourself as her evaluator. You inherited quite a burden of responsibility to her, the facility, and the court." Seaborn said all this through a smile, but now it went away, and his eyebrows lifted. "Especially since we both know Dr. McMichaels isn't schizophrenic."

Reiner froze. Seaborn tilted his head just slightly. 

“It’s her pineal. It’s enlarged, isn’t it?”

Reiner shrank an inch as he stood before Seaborn. His hand fell from Seaborn’s, and he looked the man up and down before locking eyes and putting his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. Seaborn’s outstretched hand gestured toward Reiner’s chair behind the desk as he moved back to the guest chair and sat while pressing his tie against his suit. That tie with the pinhead knot. A knot that seemed by itself more confident than Reiner.

“Perhaps I could have a few more minutes of your time?”


	3. Chapter 3

The fluorescent lights in the psychiatric wing of the hospital are on timers, slowly brightening over a 15-minute period to ease patients out of their dreams. When “gentle waking” was introduced to the facility, it was done manually with a master dimmer switch at the charge station at the junction of the ward and the main elevator banks. The overnight nurse on duty would turn the dial in five increments in the last hour of her shift.

But each nurse had a different rhythm, and those patients who required stable routines quickly realized the pattern was not the same. They panicked. If the overnight nurses were called to a patient’s room with an emergency, the waking cycle would stall, sparking cries and screams. Some patients clawed at their faces until their lights were reset to dark and cycled back to full brightness at the same pace as the previous day. Mister Jameson, who was diagnosed years ago with catalepsy, broke his arm in a stress-induced seizure. The manual dial was replaced with a digital timer within two weeks, and by all accounts was a success. Likewise, the “gentle descent” of darkening lights at nighttime helped the patients return to the peace of their interior worlds, with or without the aid of medication.

Still, the transformer on each room’s bank of lights nestled atop its frame. Each day’s activation of lights caused the transformers to vibrate against the frame, creating a metallic hum. The hum grew louder as the lights brightened. It wasn’t much of a noise. No worse than the sound of an air unit through ductwork. The noise predated the “gentle waking” policy, and its absence was more noticeable. It heralded a deep silence broken only by the sound of typing from the charge desk or the quick swip-swip of hallway footsteps inside sound-muffling slippers.

The initial activation sound of the fluorescent lights on her ceiling terrifies Katherine each morning. It throws her back every time to the machine in the attic. Her sleep was already shallow and jittery. Her body flinches at millisecond movement at the edges of her periphery even when her eyes are closed. Ever since those few days in 1986, thanks to the machine, she perceives the movement of swimming objects – some amorphous, some intensely textured – as they move through the air.

When the eye projects color and shapes to the brain, these are called phosphenes. Rub the corner of your eye, and a negative image approximating your finger’s shape appears in the opposite side of your lid. They also appear in quick squints, as from a hard sneeze. It’s theorized that these are caused by physical jarring of the neurons in the visual cortex. They are distinct from floaters, which are the projected shadows of debris in your vitreous humor. The vast majority are noticeable only when seen against a particular solid background, like a deep sky or the inside of a closed eye. Either visual phenomenon is fleeting and, more importantly, ethereal. It is as smoke wisps and easily dismissed. 

This is not what Katherine sees. Unlike floaters, the creatures do not make synchronous movements with the eye. These are independent of her eyesight because she does not see them via the traffic of light through her eyes. These ragged batlike fish, the tentacled ovoids, and the gaping crustaceans -- they fly about constantly with gaping mouths of teeth and tongues, some aggressively angling toward her, some even moving through her as if she was the illusion in their world. We are not built for this degree of perception, and the brain cannot process it. It objects. It misfires. The physical manifestations are why Katherine was placed in the facility’s care. That and of course the deaths of six people connected solely by her, each an ungodly weight on her bones.

When Katherine sleeps, her brain is a collision of filtered memory and the perception of the objects flitting about us. She does not enter the deep sleep required by the brain to defrag, and she awakes each morning exhausted. Add to this the panic of association caused by the “gentle waking” cycle, a sound which resembles too closely the secret heart of the burning house and the arrival of the horrors that attended it. Each morning she hears the lights and the hum and is grossly aware of the objects darting around her, multicolored and vibrant in ways the rest of humanity cannot behold.

For those first few seconds of each morning, she thinks herself back in the attic with the machines and the monsters, and she cannot breathe. She is seized by terror and the flight impulse, but she is bound by the heavy hospital blankets, and the weight stifles her, convincing her, this time, she won’t evade the pursuing thing in the house that clutched her before collapsing into a slimy mass. And then she was running to the window, and the room blossomed into heat and force and wind, and she plunges into the night air before slamming into the ground and snapping her legs, tumbling into both the unmoving earth and the chaos of her flailing mind.

Neither the abandonment of her bed nor the full dawn of the “gentle waking” protocols make the objects disappear. They swoop and dive with no pattern, some seemingly as close as here eyelashes, and some hundreds of yards away. The latter distance offers no comfort for she is aware how large they must be for her to detect them. And occasionally – much too often for her comfort – she can sense something that may be the voracious dragon she encountered in 1986. It is also no relief to acknowledge that there may be more than one such monster – or one larger, or many larger -- in her vicinity regardless of its inability to interact with her. Katherine can sense them all. Do they sense her too? Will they until she dies? Or worse, she wonders, after?

The universe is not as we are assured. That knowledge alone would bend the normal workings of any mind. For Katherine that is the foundation of her status quo. The only solace is that it may also be what afflicts those also deemed to be schizophrenic. Perhaps the ailment which isolates her also bonds her to others here in this building and elsewhere. Perhaps she is not alone in her mind’s deformity.

This is how Katherine awoke each morning.

Once she collected herself, she sat up to the side of the bed. She closed her eyes again and remained still. Someone walking in might have thought she had fallen back asleep. She waited for the area between her and the bathroom to clear of jellyfish and eels. When the movement was convenient for her, she rose and shuffled in her hospital slippers to the small room at the back of her suite. Her eyes stay closed. She knew this room to the millimeter, having lived here for 17 years.

When it was obvious that traditional therapies and medication cycles were not going to alleviate her symptoms, and the DA petitioned the court for safe observation access, the facility asked the state for funds to accommodate her. Involuntary commitments were certainly nothing new, but the prominence of her case was convenient for all. The state legislature and their subcommittees could hardly be seen to deny the hospital requirements to guarantee her confinement. If the court ruled the conditions inadequate, she might be moved out of state, depriving the Massachusetts politicians a visible target for their stances against lenient punishments and for mental health oversight reforms. The psychiatric ward was given enough money to extend itself along the perimeter of the facility campus and add a new elevator column to the existing structure.

In this new portico was Katherine’s isolated suite, complete with embedded ceiling cameras, eliminating the previous room’s one-way mirror and encouraging the illusion of privacy. She was allowed strictly filtered Internet access through an outdated desktop computer at certain times of the day, and her bathroom included a bathtub. The building extension included another across the hall and two more on the below floor in the event the facility housed similar cases from other parts of the state or outside it. They were unoccupied.

Her path clear, she slipped on her hospital slippers and shuffled to the mirror. Then she opened her eyes and saw herself.

When Katherine was made a “special inclusion” by agreement of the hospital and the court, she just turned 28 years old. She had bright blonde hair to her shoulders, regrown after the removal of singed hair. That brusque shearing had only exacerbated her public perception as a madwoman. It was now graying and flat in color. Her blue eyes were heavier, made more so by her body resettling from the waking adrenaline jolt. She was small of frame even before the machine and the fire. Now she was bird thin, physically cowed by the constant presence of the spectres and the years of medications.

She knew they wouldn’t work. The dopamine and serotonin inhibitors, the perphenazine, and clozapine. The earlier weight gain from the risperidone and quetiapine. She knew those drugs had higher risks of death. Quetiapine could kill your heart or liver while it treated antipsychotic behavior. Risperidone could wither your lungs and pancreas. She was glad those days were behind her. She hated the drugs. Her father, diagnosed with schizophrenia, a significant factor in her pursuit of the disorder, was reduced to a hollow shell by a random dogpile of drugs. When she was practicing, she resisted giving them to her own patients after seeing the adverse effects. Chlorpromazine made poor Lauren Pool develop ventricular dysrhythmia and drop dead on her weekly outing to that hospital’s botanical garden. She died among the tree peonies, her favorite flower.

Doctor Reiner halted all of Katherine’s medications not long after he conducted an MRI. It was strange that he ran the scan himself instead of assigning it to a resident. Stranger still that he refused to tell Katherine what he found. But she suspected he saw what she had seen on another diagnosed schizophrenic 27 years before: an enlarged pineal gland with new mass extending into the visual cortex. He might believe now that she wasn’t a paranoid or a disorganized; she wasn’t schizophrenic at all. What she saw were not hallucinations.

Katherine brushed her teeth and showered. The water sensor registered with the station of the on-duty nurse. The nurse probably also saw Katherine move about in her room after she awoke but would not use the intercom to greet her until she had prepared for the day. It was a courtesy more than a facility policy. Katherine appreciated the gesture. Today was Tuesday. That meant Wilma was on duty.

Wilma was younger than her and had been there two years, beginning rounds within days of receiving her license. She was freckled and stout. She smiled always, a relief from the dour nurses who regarded their responsibilities as chores. Wilma relished the chance to be of assistance, and she was glad to find Katherine conversational, unlike the majority of patients in the wing. Wilma even waited until Katherine was dressed before paging her.

“Good morning, Katherine.” Only Doctor Reiner called her Dr. McMicheals. This was professional courtesy. “Breakfast will be ‘round shortly. “

“Thank you, Wilma.” She adjusted the top button on her shirt collar. Part of her exhibiting behaviors was what she called “hyper-prim” dress. She favored modest professional attire when she was a practicing doctor, but now her preference for long sleeves and high collars served as mellow binding. She was allowed her glasses with giant red frames for reading. She wore them all the time now to complete her efforts to remain Dr. McMichaels. It was a measure of control she could exert separate from her location, and she rarely appeared outside her room without a high collar. Her crisp blouses could be spotted easily among the other patients dressed in their simple gowns and scrubs. She was, however, not allowed pants other than those of the standard patient; if she ever tried to leave the wing, even a new orderly would immediately know she was not a visitor or doctor.

She ate in her room, unable to mingle in the social room with the other patients as mandated by the court. Her room contained a small table for two where she would sit with Doctor Reiner. The chair was bolted to the floor and the wall. Above it was a window along the far wall of the room, and she could see the wildlife preserve and, beyond that, the cove. She stared at a flock of birds bouncing about. She wondered if they were chickadees. It had been a lifetime since she heard their high two-note whistles. 

Katherine turned on her computer and started streaming an online classical-music station. It was a facility-approved channel with no newsbreaks. Even in times of national emergency, the programming wasn’t interrupted. It was safe for all in the facility, especially the one patient whose name might appear in a politician’s evening news sound bite.

She sat in the computer desk’s chair at the sound of a knock at the door.

“Katherine, may I come in?”

“Oh, Doctor Reiner, yes.”

He slowly opened the door to allow the orderly behind him to scan the room. He then opened it all the way and greeted her with a smile. He turned to take the breakfast tray from the orderly and carry it to the table. In his other hand he carried a chart with a small envelope clipped to it.

“I thought I’d bring this by while we talk. I normally don’t come by this early. I hope it’s not a bad time.”

“No, of course not. I enjoy the company.”

Katherine stayed seated at the computer, back straight and hands clasped in her lap, until the orderly closed the door behind them. She knew both men had stopped by the nurse’s station to peek in the room before knocking. She again appreciated the courtesy.

She moved to the table and sat. He then sat down himself and moved a bagel from the tray to the table top.

“I brought one for myself too.” He reached into the envelope and pulled out a handful of yellow packets. “I also snuck in some of the fruit spread from the downstairs commissary. It’s better than what they serve up here. Also you don’t get the cranberry from the local guys.”

Katherine’s eyes brightened at the sound of that, and she made a small clapping gesture. She grabbed the small plastic knife with her left hand and her own bagel while he opened the packet. In the few seconds that she waited, a silver firefly silently swerved behind her. She tilted her head forward and scrunched her shoulders. Her hands stayed on the table. She did not swat the bug away. Reiner watched her hands with no expression. He hadn’t seen the bug of course. No one ever did.

“I rarely see you this early, Dr. McMichaels,” she said toward the bagel while he smeared it with cranberry. “But I was on the campus and thought I’d stop by. I brought some notes to discuss if you like.” He handed the bagel to her.

“Always, doctor.” She took a bite and closed her eyes at the taste. “Oh, wow. Wow. That’s good. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and nodded as she set it back in her lap. “I missed that.”

A slim bifurcated eel with an ant head slipped through the wall above the computer, and she ignored it. The music continued.

“Is every Tuesday pancake day?” Reiner propped his elbows on the table, entwined his hands, and gave an exaggerated look over her tray.

“Yes, it helps us keep track of the days. Routine is everything, after all.” She put down her bagel and dusted her hands. “You need a drink while you’re eating.”

“No, I’m good. I’ll eat this later.” He picked up the charts and looked down through his bifocals. “Your weight has picked back up, I see. The food must be better than I thought.”

“Or I’m finally back to normal after the drugs.” She held no grudge toward him for the cycle of medications. She knew the board would direct new treatments now and again to placate the court and trustees. He admitted his resistance to their recommendations and prescribed the minimum dosage of each. He followed the board directives to the letter but without enthusiasm. It took weeks to convince them that the drugs were proving ineffective, and the best policy was starting from square one. Katherine was now brighter and more conversational outside their adverse effects.

He noted her efforts to restrain herself from reacting to the monsters he couldn’t see. She strove to be steadfast and had drastically improved over the years. Under medication, she made no such effort. The drugs made her irritable, and she had no qualms about swatting wildly at the fly-bys. She bore their traffic with much less frustration and upset than in the early years. She no longer collapsed into tears. She no longer followed them with her head. But she flinched hard regardless of where her eyes were looking. His recent MRI discovery changed how he watched her, and it was with a renewed and perceptible curiosity.

“I had a visitor come by yesterday.” He tossed it out with feigned indifference. “Someone who suggested a technique.”

Katherine stopped midway through her bite of pancake and looked dead at him. She took one more bite and placed the plastic spork on the tray. She dabbed her mouth and cleared her throat before speaking.

“Is this another antipsychotic?” She couldn’t refuse treatment. That only led to bed straps and IVs. The streaming music would be silenced, leaving her to bear the vibrations of the lights.

“No. We’re going to steer away from those for the time being.” He crossed a knee over another and folded his hands on the table. “No, this is more of a muscle relaxant, something similar to what we’d prescribe for skeletal muscle spasms.”

“Cyclobenzaprine can cause tachycardia.” Yellow peonies flashed through her mind. Black hair strewn on newly laid bricks featuring names of garden sponsors. Brown eyes losing their moisture as they stared motionless at chickadees bouncing in the grass.

“It’s not a medication. It’s a technique. An alternative form of interaction. It’s in a trial phase, but I’m lead to believe it might be very effective for your symptoms.”

“Who has the board been talking to?” Katherine was surprised they might consider methods outside of medication.

“Oh, it’s something I’ve found recently. The board doesn’t know about it yet. I wanted to talk to you about it first. Get your take on it and consent.”

Oh, you’re smooth, she thought.

“I thought the hiatus from medication was just until they decided which one to try again. Do you think they’ll really try something new?”

“I did cash in some chips by demanding that hiatus, as you call it. I intend to at least look at other options before we start mixing cocktails again. You’re in the unusual position of being someone they don’t mind trying new things on. Just so long as we’re doing something to treat you and not just giving you a room and all the Brahms you can stand. If the court thinks we’re treading water, they’ll get … ”

“You can say ‘fidgety,’ ” Katherine said. “I don’t mind.”

A winged arachnid slipped between the bed and through the wall into the corridor outside. She could still track its movements toward the elevators. A school of spiny rats swam past, and the spider turned to chase them. It spat a line of black tubing from its mouth, nabbing one of the school and dragging it down to the ground. The rat thing kicked desperately as the spider pounced. It was facing away from Katherine and Reiner, sparing her this time the sight of its mouth tearing apart its food. Katherine slowed her chewing and looked up and out the window.

“I don’t want to be too specific right now. But you are interested?”

“Yes. Of course, doctor.” She moved her eyes from the window and gave him a quick smile.

“There’s something else.” He opened his posture and sat up straight. “The specialist conducting the new technique would like to speak with you. It would work like a case history, to document his observations from the ground floor. As if you had just walked in the door.”

“You really meant ‘square one,’ didn’t you?”

Reiner chuckled. “It’s more than I intended, but I have no objection if you don’t.” He looked down at his hand on the table as it sat on its outside pad with curled fingers. It opened as he started to speak again. “It means you would have to go over the events of that October. He may present you with some documents related to them.”

“Nothing he can show me can rattle me. I saw it all in person.” Her smile dematerialized, and she shrank a little. She stared at a bite of fruit on her spork tines as she spun it in her hand. “I can even talk about the others as much as he wants. That’s the least I can do.”

“I’ll be in the room with you. We can do it here if you like. You can stay in the bed.”

“No. I’ll speak to him as a colleague. Here at this table. But you’re welcome to be here and observe. Your notes may fill any holes I may have about that week.”

“Fine. I’ll make arrangements. You’ll have plenty of notice before he arrives.” Reiner gathered his folder and stood up. Katherine dabbed her mouth and did likewise. “If you need anything, just let the nurse on duty know. I’ll be on site all day.”

“Thank you, doctor.” She stood with her arms straight, hands laced in front of her. He was much taller, and she could see only the reflection of the lights in his glasses. She extended her hand. “And thank you for the cranberry. It was a treat.”

“You’re welcome.” He shook hands.

“It was also a nice pacifier before you mentioned the appointment.”

“Oh, yes. I suppose. Um, goodbye. Doctor.” He nodded and smiled and turned to leave. An orderly, directed by the observing nurse at her station, was standing outside. Reiner closed the door behind him, leaving Katherine standing in place.

“Doctor,” she smiled. When the door was closed, she returned to her chair and breakfast.

Reiner held up a hand to goodbye to Wilma. She was on the phone and nodded an acknowledgement as she spoke. He pressed the button for the elevator and stepped in.

It’s an odd week for handshakes, he thought as the doors closed and the elevator slid down to the free world below.


	4. Chapter 4

Katherine finished her breakfast. She placed the tray on the edge of the dresser near the door so an orderly could retrieve it with minimal interruption. She had risen and eaten, and now it was time for leg exercises.

The knees were reconstructed over the years, with months of rehab just to get her vertical and stable. She used a wheelchair for a long time. A water therapy regimen preceded her work on parallel bars to build up the strength of the ligaments and find her balance. Weight machines and elastic bands followed, as did subsequent surgeries. When she fled the house, her right kneecap almost abandoned her leg completely. Screws and plastics and metal changed the contour of her knee. Tiny dots of scar tissue sat next to thick and faded lines from early surgeries.

Regaining her legs afforded her a focus through the initial muddle of differentials and medications. The doctors surrendered to the diagnosis of schizophrenia only when admitting the symptoms fit too well. The irony of a specialist falling victim to the disorder she studied had kept them at arm’s length.

The monsters were deemed hallucinations. She eventually stopped asking for confirmation of them from the doctors and nurses. Clearly they didn’t see them or feel them. She would sit on her bed in a semicircle of residents making rounds, discussing theories in front of her as she scrunched her face against the visions of limbs and mouths slipping through her and them. Her attempts to center herself in a sea of hungry beasts and her loss of conversation amid herds of skittering fauna were deemed disorganized thinking. The memory of the multiple deaths would sink into her heart with a cold radiating to her ribs and shoulders. It emitted a field of distortion that muted the colors of the world, stranding her with the swimming legions. She would become immobile and tighten her breath to prevent them from massing around her. The doctors saw catatonia.

For a measure of emotional sovereignty, she embraced the hyper-prim. The garments shielded her from the gravity well of depression and inertia. It reminded her of her professional life and allowed her to redirect her insistent libido, another side effect of the expanded pineal. It was a constant pulse below her belly that would regularly rush to the radial nerves, saturating the skin on the back of her neck and behind her ears, shifting even the follicles of her hairline. She assuaged it only with hasty kneading after the gentle descent of the lights. She had pursued it recklessly in the house, indulging in the warmth of strangers and betraying both her sensibility and professional decorum in inexcusable ways.

It humiliated her even now, the memories making her cringe and insult herself in disgust. She refused to let it distract her. For the first few years, she would pull out individual hairs from the top of her head. Then she would pluck hair from her legs and groin. The sharp pain deflected the urge. Rarely, she would crumple into deep sighs of relief when the libido was sated for a time. She otherwise aggressively rebuked it. The doctors labeled that anhedonia -- an inability of pleasure -- instead of her angry rejection of it. These perceived symptoms and the genetic predisposition from her father, who really and truly suffered from schizophrenia, all but cemented the diagnosis.

Katherine used the lingering demands of her sex and the reflexes against the grotesque menagerie to trudge through her exercises. She startled the physical therapists with her resolve; they repeatedly removed her from the weight machines and balance props before she could hurt herself, and Katherine, awash in sweat and hair strands, screamed in protest even as her forearms and calves would throb in exhaustion.

After changing into a simple gown, she moved the computer chair away from the desk to give her access to the wall. She leaned against the wall with her forearm and grabbed her opposite ankle to pull the knee slowly up and behind her. Then she lay on the floor and propped a heel high on the wall to work the hamstrings. The other knee she flexed in a slow kicking motion. After, she lay in the bed and tucked a pillow under her knees and ankles for base elevations before raising and lowering them repeatedly. Finally she rested her palms on the dresser top and knelt and rose slowly. Whenever the muscles complained, she talked aloud to her libido, mocking it as she counted reps.

“Not today, not today,” she hissed through her teeth. “Just two more. Two more. It’s not happening today.”

If she failed to finish the day’s routine, she would force herself to masturbate before the evening’s light cycle ended. She would make no flamboyant show for the nurse’s cameras, but their notice would bolster her failure of fending off the cravings. She would finish with a relief of calming herself for a time and a promise that such measures would not be necessary the next day. By now she could defray the distraction for a week at a time. She would have to act then to quiet her body; the intensity would be irresistible, and she could use the immediate crash to fall into a deep sleep. If it could not be stifled, it would be harnessed. Katherine has determined.

She finished the day’s exercises with a heaving exhale and wiped her forehead with her arm. She gave a small wave to the ceiling camera to assure them she was fine before replacing the chair, turning the streaming music slightly higher and soaking in a long shower, leaning against the wall opposite of the showerhead with her hands to allow the heat to soak into her legs. She dried off and covered in a towel before walking to her dresser for new clothes. She dressed in the bathroom with the light dimmed; she couldn’t escape the camera there, but she could make the view less obvious. The station monitor was sheathed with blinders from passers-by, and the screen faced the wall behind the nurse’s desk. But still.

She walked to the computer, jiggled the mouse to wake the screen, and selected a new classical station stream. She found one with playing Chopin and sat in the desk chair. She swiveled it to face the edge of the bed and eased a foot on to it. She reached to the side of the computer and found a bottle of nail polish the shade of a flat maroon. She rolled up her hospital pants leg, shook the bottle, and eased the brush top out of it. She exhaled to ease her torso closer to the foot, ignoring three multi-headed dragonflies chasing each other atop the breakfast table. She stared at her feet and not at them. Her successful exercises made her confident and deliberate. She was in control.

“Not today,” she whispered and she began whistling along to the music. Her steady hands began painting. Outside her window, another congregation of birds ruffled into the sky and toward the sun.


	5. Chapter 5

“Dr. McMichaels, it’s a privilege.”

Kevin Seaborn extended his hand in the center of her room. Between them stood Doctor Reiner, having just closed the door with a quick thank-you to the accompanying orderly. The orderly turned down the hall before the door had closed. Reiner held his clipboard behind his back. He had informed Katherine earlier that Seaborn was able to visit today if she consented.

She had no objection. She professed as much professional curiosity about the new therapy as she had hope for its efficacy. Reiner was eager to see it in action himself. Seaborn had talked it up quite well in their conversation over lunch but had refused to show him the device in full view of the public. He demurred with references to proprietary prototypes and contract agreements and penalties of death. Again with the dramatic sell. Reiner didn’t mind that angle even as he reminded himself he was taking a risk introducing Katherine to someone from outside the facility without consulting the board.

But Seaborn’s suggestion of her pineal enlargement had earned him Reiner’s confederacy if not his trust. It could have been a hail-mary pass. Seemed unlikely though; he would only have the one shot to pique Reiner’s interest with a random diagnosis, and the pineal was off the board given her years of official classification and treatment. It’s why Reiner had kept his discovery to himself. He needed to slowly broach the suggestion to the board, and Step One had been cutting Katherine off all medication for now. That would give the brain a chance to flush away the residue and allow him a clean scan of her mind soon. But now was the time for Katherine and Seaborn to size each other up.

“Mister Seaborn, it’s a pleasure.” Katherine wore one of her few dress blouses, complete with cameo, a gift from her mother when she received her psychiatric degree. It had been given to her by Katherine’s father whose malaise indirectly led her to this room and this moment. “Please have a seat.”

She gestured to the table and chairs. Reiner moved to the computer desk chair and sat. Seaborn waited for Katherine to take her chair before he held his tie to his chest and sat. With one hand he unbuttoned his suit jacket, and with the other he reached into his inside jacket pocket and removed a smartphone. He set it on the table next to his binder of notes.

“May I see that?” Her face dimpled at the gadget. She leaned over to take it in.

“Of course,” Seaborn picked it up, turned it around, and handed it to her. Katherine took it in both hands as if it were a tiny hymnal.

“They’re so amazing.” Katherine glimpsed such devices as residents and doctors made their rounds, but cell phones were only seen in extravagant TV shows before she became a guest of the hospital. Those were the size of modern water bottles. What Katherine held in her palms was a marvel. The lightness, the vibrancy of the screen, and the sharp wide font displaying the time elicited a coo.

“That’s one of ours.” Seaborn said. “It’s not on the market yet. I test drive it for the company on these trips.” He touched a button on the top. Katherine could see herself in the screen. A small row of icons appeared under her face. The surprise of it made her sit back.

“Oh, hello.” She turned to Reiner’s soft laughter. “These are so neat. Really, it’s just amazing.”

“That’s the camera. Touch the shutter image, and you can take your picture.” Seaborn pointed from his side of the table. Katherine held out the phone to arm’s length and turned slightly to the side. She made no gesture of recognition to the large stingray floating outside her room in the corridor. It had at least a dozen tails and a thick trunk protruding over its undulating mouth. Her other hand moved solely to the screen, and she made the gentlest of contact with her finger on the icon. The screen blinked to the still image she had just taken. “And there you are.”

Katherine turned it so Reiner and Seaborn could see. Seaborn reached back for the phone and regarded the image.

“Now I have a souvenir of the visit.”

“Um, I can’t let you save that,” Reiner said. “Hospital policy.”

“Oh, of course,” Seaborn said. He pressed a few buttons and turned the now blank gallery folder screen to the doctor. “It’s gone. My mistake. I should have thought of that.”

“No problem.” Seaborn slid his finger over the screen a few times and pressed it once his thumb before resetting it on the table. A small light blinked twice. He cupped his hands together on the table and leaned in on his elbows.

“Now, Dr. McMichaels, I wanted to talk to you today in preparation of a new therapy my company has created. We make a variety of instruments, including this phone.” He rolled his hand to the side to point to it. “One of the instruments we make can interact with the mesolimbic pathways disbursing dopamine and serotonin through the brain. Obviously the majority of antipsychotic medications prescribed to those diagnosed with schizophrenia repress those receptors.” 

Katherine had adopted her professional demeanor now -- hands in her lap, back straight, eyes slightly narrowed. The hyper-prim armor. She leaned in with her shoulders as Seaborn talked.

“Originally, we developed our therapy to affect those with attention deficit disorder. Studies show they receive a dramatically reduced measure of dopamine. So we targeted the mesolimbic system to reverse that. Help them focus. But, of course, inattention and difficulty processing information are part of the triumvirate of the schizophrenic diagnoses: disorganized, reality distortion, and psychomotor. So we considered the possibility that our therapy could help those diagnosed with schizophrenia.” 

“The theories behind it have changed since I was practicing,” Katherine said. “But the doctors here have spoken to me about current models of thinking.” She nodded to Reiner sitting with arms and legs crossed in the desk chair. He nodded back.

“But what I’d like to do is review the events of October 1986, if you don’t mind,” Seaborn said. He opened up his thumbs in a show of tendered proposition. “Perhaps there was something missed, something previously dismissed as inconsequential that might now apply to our therapies.” 

Katherine looked to Reiner who answered her silent expression of concern with a scrunch of ascent.

“Now, I am aware of enough of your case to see what has been dismissed by others as hallucinations. The phrase ‘recurrent confusion and displacement’ pops up, and I suspect that’s just to pad out the length of the report. Make it look thorough.” He took a breath and held it for a second. “I’m also aware clearly of the severity of your experience. I don’t want to exploit that, and I don’t want—“

“Mister Seaborn, I have discussed the incidents for more than 25 years,” Katherine looked at the table top with her hand hovering just above it. Seaborn couldn’t tell if the hand was to stop him or give her something to focus on while she spoke. Then she looked right at him. “I understand the clinical value of walking through them. I understand that the more thorough I am, the better we can attune your therapy. I’ll answer your questions. I’ll provide the significant details. But there will be some elements that need not be conveyed explicitly to be of use.”

“Agreed.” Seaborn moved his hands to his legs and tilted his head while looking at her and then to Reiner. “We only need the pertinent information. But there may be some details of which I’m not aware. I don’t have the full notes of your previous medical interviews nor do I have all the evidence provided to the courts.”

Katherine’s hand was flat on the table now.

“But we’re talking about deaths, and my participation in them. We’re also talking about things I can only guess about. I can’t be definitive of everything.”

“I’m not looking for answers to what happened to everyone,” Seaborn said. “I want to know what happened to you. Maybe I can help you recover from that. Maybe we can make you better.”

Katherine smiled. “That would be wonderful.” She glanced out the window and the afternoon sun slipping past the top of the sill toward the west. “Better would be welcome. But I can never forget what happened. I can only hope you believe what I tell you.”

Seaborn pursed his lips and nodded.

“Let’s find out.”


	6. Chapter 6

“I was a member of the Department of Psychiatry’s Schizophrenia Program at Kingsport General,” Katherine began. “I started in 1984 after receiving my board certification from the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. I had completed my residency there too.

“I helped develop a new therapy trial incorporating increased community participation for those diagnosed with schizophrenia. The idea being that a strict routine and social support could help them resist the symptoms.”

She sat forward and tapped her finger on the tabletop for punctuation. “Locking away schizophrenics is a dead end. They can’t recover in a vacuum. Isolation and constant negative prognosis is a damaging feedback loop. They lose all sense of normality, and the ensuing frustration exacerbates the symptoms. They wither. They lose any healthy perception of self that can help them function.” She caught her breath and sat back. “Of course, there are the extreme paranoid cases who require limitations. But they present more of a danger to themselves than others.”

She turned to Reiner and back to Seaborn, who wrote notes on a legal pad. Reiner had denied him the request to record the interview. “I’m not speaking of my case. I am here for reasons separate from my … disorder. Legal concerns. I have disagreed with my diagnosis for years. I am not a paranoid. I’m not.” That sounded sharper to her than she intended. “But I recognize that I present a danger to the public, and I welcome Doctor Reiner’s assistance and judgment. He is -- and I want this on the record – the finest advocate I could hope for.” She briefly smiled in his direction and resumed her posture with hands in her lap.

“At Kingsport, I tried to be an advocate for patients unresponsive to the initial medications. I feared they were dulled into compliance instead of truly managing their symptoms. I was able to show that some mild cases were able to overcome the nadir of their experiences and regain stability. We showed the community therapy could work. It could. I understand this has been adapted on a much broader scale these days.”

“It’s true.” Reiner tipped his head toward Seaborn. “Better combinations of counseling and medication – in optimum and practical doses – allow many displaying the symptoms to continue their routines. They have a support contact with the hospital and have regular appointments for evaluation. The social support model has been embraced to the credit of Dr. McMichaels and the Kingsport program.”

“I had also consulted on court cases to determine the fitness of defendants in criminal cases. In early October 1986, I was contacted by the district attorney’s office to diagnose Crawford Tillinghast here at Arkham General.” She scratched a small itch behind her ear and looked toward the window above the table. Then back at Seaborn. “He was arrested in the murder of Dr. Edward Pretorious the week before and was presenting symptoms of a paranoid collapse. He fixated on the claim of distress caused by a new awareness of invisible creatures. He claimed he and Pretorious had built a machine they called a resonator that made the creatures visible and blamed one of them for killing Pretorious. The DA’s office had concerns about their case, and my consult was requested to clarify his statement.”

“Concerns?” Seaborn asked. “It was literally the locked-room scenario, if the notes are accurate. Did they think someone else was involved?”

“No, but the findings presented questions that I understood could confuse the jury. Pretorious was beheaded, but his head was never found. There was no blood in the room or on the suspected murder weapon. Crawford’s fingerprints were, however, but he argued he used the ax to break the machine and chase away the creature. Also, the body was coated in an unknown substance. They wanted an airtight prosecution.

“Crawford was resolute that he was innocent, and the creatures were to blame. But they couldn’t interact with us without the machine, which he damaged to stop the attack. The police couldn’t reactivate it to verify his claims.”

Seaborn underlined a note on his pad at this. “And what exactly did it do? What was it designed for?”

“Initially, the resonator was designed as a sensory enhancement device. Pretorious was following the theories of Descartes that the pineal gland could be manipulated and strengthened to increase perception,” she said. Reiner shifted his pose and rested his elbows on his knees at this. “The resonator was intended to energize the pineal gland to see beyond the normal light wavelengths and exaggerate sexual stimulation. 

“However, Crawford claimed the machine also increased the perceptions of these creatures, allowing for interaction. He was admitted to the facility with a bite mark on his face, and initial forensics couldn’t identify the bite signature. It wasn’t from Pretrious or the dog belonging the neighbor who had entered the house after calling police. Again the case as weakened by this.”

“I suggested we use a CT scan on Crawford to examine the pineal. Dr. Bloch – the facility representative – objected to Crawford’s theory. Even when presented with images of a developed pineal, she regarded it as a tumor. I saw a pineal gland expanding into the thalamus, at least contributing to Crawford’s range of symptoms. I presented this theory to the detective assigned to the case, Jordan Fields, and suggested Crawford’s claims had merit. Bloch objected.

“I argued we could solidify his claims and potentially stabilize his symptoms by re-enacting the events of the night. Perhaps doing so would yield some evidence suppressed by his trauma. Fields said he needed closure on the case’s outstanding questions and allowed me to accompany Crawford back to the house. Again Bloch dissented, but Fields agreed under the condition that we be shadowed by Sergeant Buford Brownlee. I agreed that was prudent given the nature of the charges. If Crawford had another violent episode, I certainly couldn’t prevent him from hurting himself.

“We three arrived at the house. Crawford made repairs to the machine and restarted it with simplified controls. It was cylindrical, about five feet high with large metal tongs which vibrated to create the distortion field that affected perception. The attic filled with pink light and circulated air created by the machine. We all experienced a manipulation of the pineal gland. It was a flush of the capillaries with elevated blood flow.” She adjusted in her seat, preempting the agitation below. “We interacted with creatures attracted to the resonator. We could clearly see and hear them, proving the theory of increased pineal perception. Sergeant Brownlee approached a swarm of floating animals and was bitten on the arm by one of them. Then we met Dr. Pretorious.”

Seaborn looked up from his notes and flipped his pad paper to a clean sheet, and Reiner moved his chair closer to Katherine. She was staring up and out the window as she recited. The room grew darker as the sun disappeared above the building.

“He stepped from behind the machine and claimed to have survived the attack. I had only seen video of him from his lectures at Miskatonic and one other we had found in the house. We had never met, but it appeared to be him. Crawford approached him, and Pretorious’s skin … moved. He scraped the skin off his face, exposing the musculature and claiming he had complete control of his body. His started laughing, and his head, um, disassembled itself. It split open, and fluid gushed from his neck and shoulders. And then two long arms stretched toward us. Crawford turned off the machine, and Pretorious and the creatures vanished.”

Seaborn’s pen continued to scribble.

“It was decided that we needed to regroup in the lower floors. We ate and confirmed our observations. I suggested the machine may demand a new means of classifying schizophrenia, as evidenced by its effects on Crawford. If the pineals of those diagnosed were enlarged without exposure to the machine, they could have experienced similar perceptions. It could completely alter their treatment.

“Crawford objected, saying further exposure to the resonator field could prove permanently damaging to the brain structure. He said that what we had seen and talked to was not Pretorious but the creature that had attacked him. It was, he supposed, mimicking him as best it could understand a human with a mind like that. He was insistent. It wasn’t Pretorious. It was the creature, and it would attack us if the machine was reactivated. 

“Bubba – Sergeant Brownlee, that is – agreed. He said criminal charges might be required to prevent use of the machine again. It had already killed Pretorious, and he and Crawford were both hurt by its operation.”

“So with a machine that seemingly allowed contact with a dead person and bizarre animals,” Seaborn interjected, not looking up from his notes, “why did you stay?”

“You have to understand, Mister Seaborn. The universe had changed for us.” She leaned toward him, speaking softly. “What we experienced couldn’t have been a mass hallucination. Bubba was wounded. We all saw it. I bandaged it. It couldn’t have been sparked by some suggestion of Crawford’s. We didn’t expect to see Pretorious. Alive. Altered. We saw something fundamentally at odds with what we understood about the world. At the very least, those two men may have accidentally created the key to solving schizophrenia. We didn’t need to leave the house. Just step back and consider what we were dealing with.” She looked down at her lap. “If the machine hadn’t been damaged, if we could have modulated the power levels again, maybe everything would have been different.

“We had worked all night. We decided we needed to sleep and approach the experience fresh the next day. Crawford and Bubba took Pretorious’s video room, and I was given his bed.”

“The video room was where he kept his fetish materials?” Seaborn’s question was flat and dull.

“Yes, Pretorious displayed sociopathic paraphilia. He was a sadist. Bubba found videos in the house of him abusing women. He seemed to have a library of them. The room contained paraphernalia used for his fetishes. That’s where the men stayed as it had the only other beds. The master bedroom contained nothing of the kind. He seemed to have compartmentalized his proclivities to that room.

“I woke up in the afternoon with a headache. I was eager to inspect the machine again and went back into the attic.”

“By yourself?”

“Yes. I … I examined the resonator and turned it back on. I wanted to experience the pineal stimulation again. I was alone. I wanted to see it in operation without Crawford. He was a variable.” She sighed and shifted her legs to the side of the chair. “That’s what I told myself. It was reckless and unprofessional. The pineal stimulation was invigorating. I wanted to feel it again.

“I immediately felt it in my head.” She held her hands next to her head and moved them in circles. Seaborn thought she was pantomiming shampooing her hair. “My pineal was pulsing. Even squirming. I felt it in my brain reacting to the resonator, and it scared me. But then the movement settled into a rhythm that approximated my pulse. And I could feel it all over. The pink light and wind returned. Crawford came into the attic to turn off the resonator, and I refused. We kissed. We were influenced by the machine and what it was doing to us, what it was designed to do. We acted like college kids. Then Pretorius returned.

“He seemed to appear to suffer from neurofibromatosis. Boils covered his body. They were seeping. His skin had smeared and adhered his right arm to his torso. That side of his body was crusted and oozing from his head to the floor. He didn’t seem able to walk. It seemed like whatever had killed him and imitated him was losing the approximation of a human body and returning to its original form. I suggested to Crawford that I could engage Pretorious – or whatever it was – and give him a chance to turn off the machine. That’s when it grabbed me.”

“Crawford panicked and ran to the basement to disconnect the master power. He and Bubba couldn’t get to the fuse box because the basement was flooded. There were giant leeches, made corporeal in the widening field of the resonations. One of them grabbed Crawford around the head and tried to eat him. Bubba grabbed the bundled wires of the resonator and pulled them out of the circuit breaker.

“That cut off the machine, and everything disappeared. The water. The leeches. Pretorius. Crawford fell to the ground. He was unconscious. All his hair had been sucked away. He had been exfoliated. The skin that was left was raw and red with gaping wounds where chunks of his skin had been pulled out. Bubba picked him up and carried him back upstairs. Touching him almost drove Crawford into shock. He was limp in Bubba’s arms. Deadweight. Shivering and moaning with every breath. I met them in the hallway under the attic.”

“What had happened to you while they were in the basement?” Seaborn hadn’t taken a note for a few minutes. He was frozen.

“Pretorious sexualy assaulted me and tried to remove my head.”

She closed her eyes and took a breath.

“After he grabbed me, he assaulted me. Then he turned me around to face him, and I watched his head opened up as before, but instead of the previous giant arms, it was a second, larger head, emerging through his collar bones. It had no eyes. Two giant halves of a brain were exposed in a curved framework of thick bone curves that met at his mouth. It was a massive gape. As the jaw opened back up, the tips of the two pincers narrowed closer to each other and out again. The head was enormous in width, and the neck was segmented like a wasp’s thorax. It chittered and squealed in a metallic, pinched tone. I could even hear it over my screams.

“He – it -- turned me around again, and squeezed my shoulders close together and began lifting me up. I scrunched my head lower because I knew this is what had happened to Pretorious. It was going to eat my head.

“The upper palate of his mouth grazed my hair. I could see the edge of its teeth creep into my field of vision. I titled my head forward and down out of reflex. And I could feel the lower jaw on either side of my neck. I shook my head and threw my head to the side, but the pincers tightened together and held my head in place. Its bottom jaw moved further down my neck, and the dripping palate started to block my view of the beams of the ceiling, and I was in its mouth.

“I rolled my head, and its skull shifted to move me farther into its throat. The pincers tapped me on the cheeks and neck, and the hands prevented me from shaking away. Its squeal enveloped me, and I could feel it sucking air past my face and into it. The jaws closed and slid down closer to my shoulders. I clenched my teeth and I kept screaming. The squeal stuttered as it sucked on my head. I could feel the pull of my hair above and behind me. My ears pulled away from my scalp, and I couldn’t move my head at all. It had me. I was exhausted from struggling and freezing and utterly weak and trapped, and it was eating me, and I thought I was dying. 

“And then it was gone. Bubba had pulled the wires.

“I stayed in place for a second before I fell to the floor. The resonator was cycling down. The pink light was gone. I twirled around and up to look for the monster, but I was alone. I ran to the machine and pulled out the power cords attached to its base. I raced around the resonator until all the cords were out, and then I stood back and looked at it. I expected it to revive and bring back the thing that attacked me. I waited. Nothing happened. I could barely stand, and my breath was making me shake and heave.

“With the resonator shut down, my pineal also seemed to shut off. I was left light-headed, and the absence of the pineal pulse was a physical pain. It felt as if a door in my head had slammed shut. I wanted it back, but I would have to turn the machine on again, and that would be reckless. Obviously. I didn’t know what I wanted. I was bereft and terrified and ashamed. 

“I staggered away from the resonator and out of the attic. I had to brace against the wall to use the stairs, and I got to the landing of the second floor and put my forehead against the wall. I was sore from the assault, and I was leaning on the wall with my hands inside the ripped nightgown and my hair flattened against my face when I turned and saw Bubba carrying Crawford up the stairs. His skin was a tortured red, and he was completely hairless to the waist. He had passed out from pain.”

“But you didn’t see what happened to Crawford,” Seaborn said. He blinked slowly and returned his gaze to the notepad.

“No.” Katherine stared at the top of his head. Seaborn felt it and raised his eyes back to her. He crept back slightly at her expression. “I can’t describe the creatures beyond what Bubba told me. But I believe him. I know of no way Bubba could have caused Crawford’s injuries in a short amount of time. And I was also attacked by something unearthly.

“We found what medications we could in the house and treated Crawford in the room where they slept. Painkillers mostly. Something to help him sleep. We took note of his vitals and applied ointments. I showered while Bubba took first watch over him. When it was my turn with Crawford -- even as I attended to his wounds caused by my activation of the machine -- I thought of ways the machine could be safely reactivated. I needed it. I needed to wake up my pineal again. Bubba said I was losing myself to it, and we had to leave. If I couldn’t use the machine, I wanted to find something else to make me feel the same way.

“I considered the props in the room and thought of therapeutic role play. I found a wardrobe with clothes he kept for himself and his women. I put one of the costumes, and I played with make-up. I tried to convince myself I could recreate the sensations, the sensitivity even, created by the pineal gland without the machine. That would be safe. No one would be harmed by that, I thought. It seemed to work. I could feel a modicum of the resonator effects, and I looked over to Crawford. He was asleep, and Bubba was loading the van. We were alone.

“What I did next was against all standards of professionalism. I know that. I was desperate.

“I fondled Crawford to see if what we mutually experienced in the attic would happen again. I wanted to jumpstart the pineal. I needed to feel more of that. Crawford didn’t wake, and I took advantage of him. I tried to convince myself I could feel it all again. That’s when Bubba returned.

“I moved off Crawford and presented myself to Bubba, hoping I could encourage him to indulge me. He refused. He was in control, and as an officer he was concerned about our safety. He knew we had to get away from the machine, as evidenced by my behavior. He said I was addicted to its effects, and he forced me to look at myself in a mirror. The sight of me in such garish clothes shocked me, and I was ashamed. Confused too. What I saw was the result of pursuing the want of a want. It was artificial. It wasn’t who I am. That’s when we heard the machine upstairs.

“It was right above us, and the wooden floors carried the sound in a deep hum. The ceiling was vibrating. Crawford immediately woke up. He had endured the most exposure to the resonator of the three of us, and he was the most sensitive to it. Remember, they had cut the power supply in the basement. I had removed all the power cables. But we heard it. And we could all feel it reach into our minds. I welcomed that authentic rush, and I was relieved to have it back. Then I remembered the things that attacked us, and I froze. But Bubba was already running to the attic.

“I helped Crawford off the bunk and wrapped myself up in a robe. I could hear Bubba upstairs. He had fallen away from the machine. When we ran up the stairs, we saw cables around an ax in the floor. He had tried to chop them, but the energy streamed around the ax and through the cables reattached to the resonator. When Crawford and I ran to it, we were swarmed by thousands of tiny insects. They landed on us and started biting. I was covered in the robe, but they moved through my hair and on my face and fingers. They were biting everywhere in clusters. They were in my ears and moving under the robe. Crawford only had pajama pants on, and the bugs were on his back and arms and feet. He was screaming. I realized I was too.

“Then the bugs were gone. They lifted off of us away in sheets, and I heard Bubba. He had dropped a flashlight, and the bugs followed the beam of light. It was shining on him. They all pounced. They covered his arms. His hands and fingers disappeared under all of them. They blanketed his head, and he was screaming. He fell to the floor, maybe from the sheer weight of them all, and by the time we got to his side, they had devoured him. The skin and muscles on his arms were gone. They were bone. So were his legs. He looked at us before his head fell back, and he died. There was almost nothing left of him. He had been eaten alive. The bugs flew away, and we thought at first it was because they moved to another light source. But it was because they felt the presence of a predator. It was Pretorious.

“He had changed again. He was doubled over and squatting. His head was bobbing on a long, thick stalk of a neck. On the top of it were scattered vertebrae embedded in his skin. He was dripping that resin from before. It puddled at his feet which were now blocky and clawed. His right arm jutted out of a smeared mass from his torso, and the ridges were more pronounced over his body. A slim bulb projected from his forehead and darted in the air. He seemed to throb in time with the resonator vibrations, and I could feel them in my mind as well. We were all in a rhythm, bobbing in the pool of the machine’s field.

“Crawford tried to stand with me to run. But he crumpled and grabbed his head. I ran toward a fire extinguisher, hoping I could fend off Pretorious and maybe shut down the machine. He grabbed me. He threw a bundle of skin and muscles at me, and they formed a sort of hand. It wrapped around my shoulders and throat and tangled in my legs. I dropped the extinguisher and pushed the fingers off my throat. Pretorious yelled at Crawford. Crawford’s forehead burst, and a stalk lurched out of him. It was his pineal. Both he and Pretorious has experienced so much of the machine’s effects that their pineals protruded from their brains. Crawford’s demeanor changed completely, and now he was swaying in rhythm with the resonator. The stalk moved in small circles. His expression had fallen, and his eyes rolled toward the stalk. He was mesmerized. Then Pretorious dragged me to the floor.

“I was sliding toward him. The hand was pulling me by the shoulders away from the machine and Crawford. He didn’t react. I don’t think he saw me or heard me cry to him. I reached for anything to stop me and grabbed the extinguisher cord. I pointed it at the resonator and sprayed the machine with the foam. The machine immediately closed down. The light and hum sputtered away. Pretorious was gone. I pushed myself off the floor, and the machine revived with pops and sparks. Pretorious was behind me again, reaching for me. I stood up and sprayed the machine again. I walked around it, and it again deactivated into silence. Pretorious wasn’t there anymore. I held the handle until the foam only came out in spurts, and the can was empty. Then I threw it at the machine, and it bounced off. I knelt next to Crawford who collapsed to the floor when the machine cut off. He was unconscious. It was just me and him and what was left of Bubba. Had I left when Bubba asked me to, he would still be alive and Crawford’s brain would be intact. I was unable to help either of them, and I ran downstairs to the phone to call for help.

“At the facility, Fields was apoplectic over Bubba. Why didn’t we call for help? What happened to him? I couldn’t give him an answer. I had destroyed two men because I couldn’t leave the machine alone. My head ached from the absence of the pineal stimulation, and I as dressed in this ridiculous leather outfit and bleeding and crying. I looked like I had been brought in by the vice squad.

“I was an easy target for Fields and Bloch, and I deserved everything. Bloch wanted me admitted. I protested that the machine had to be destroyed, and she shouted me down. I had nothing left to fight with. Everything since we arrived at the house had reduced me utterly. Bloch still stung at having her initial Crawford diagnosis overruled, and she ordered shock therapy for me.”

“She what?!” Seaborn blinked at Katherine and Reiner, his mouth slack. His eyes looked back and forth as they shrugged. “That’s not in the notes. She did what?”

Reiner cleared his throat. “Dr. Bloch had a reputation for extreme responses to what she deemed extreme cases. That covered a lot of territory.” He stared at his hand absently rapping on the computer desk. “The facility made notes of her orders, but they were excised in the confusion after her death. The normal protocol wasn’t followed. Keep in mind this was 25 years ago. The treatment of patients was much different.”

Seaborn sat back against his chair. “So when she was found dead a little later, they looked at you.”

“They would have, but I was already gone. The nurse on duty had argued with Bloch and was bullied into doing it. The orderly strapped me down, and I had the electrodes on my head and gauze gag and everything, but there was a disturbance in the corridors, and he had to get me off the table quickly. When he undid my hand, I hit him with the overhead light shade and made it to an ambulance.

“That disturbance was the death of Bloch?”

“Yes, her left eye had been exenterated and parts of her brain extracted.” Katherine stared at her hands laced together on the table top. “She was discovered maybe a half hour before the EMTs were found in the parking lot.”

“And they had similar injuries.”

“One, Lieutenant Dovers, was identical. Claires suffered massive blunt trauma to the head. But her eyes were intact. I found out about the three of them later. I had driven to my apartment to change clothes and then to the Kingsport storage center. That’s where I got the explosives to destroy the resonator.”

“Just a second please,” Seaborn asked. He propped his elbows on the table and held the pen in both hands, twirling it as he looked at her. “A bundle of blasting sticks and a timer, correct? Where did they come from?”

“I counseled a patient at Kingsport General who was a paranoid schizophrenic. He was convinced the Russians were following him and disguising themselves as family members. He wanted to protect himself, and he stashed explosives from his job at the Kingsport marble quarry. He had built timers and told me how he wired them. I used his key from my patient files at my apartment. I hadn’t told the police about them because we would go to the garage and talk about his methods of foiling the Russians. If he noticed anything was missing, had I informed the police, he would have fallen further into the delusion. And I was sure I could bring him back to stability. I was sure of many things.

“I drove back to the house and set the explosives on the resonator and set the timer. I was leaving when Crawford grabbed me and dragged me into the fetish room. He bound me in the straps hanging from the ceiling. I begged him to let me go because of the bomb. I told him we had to destroy the machine. But he was in a fugue state. His pineal stalk had protruded, and he was again affected by its emergence. He was under full sway and tried to suck out my eye. I kneed him, and when he bent over, his head was near mine. I bit the pineal stalk and ripped it out of his forehead. He screamed and fell to the floor, and that’s when the machine reactivated.

“Maybe whatever could control it from … beyond could tell we returned. The room was filled with the pink light and wind. Crawford was cognizant again quickly but seemed confused about where he was. Pretorious appeared and grabbed my throat. Crawford yelled at him, insulted him, and Pretorious released me and chased him. I heard them moving down the stairs, and then I heard Crawford screaming.

“A few eels swam into the room, and I attracted their attention by shaking my wrists. They were aggressive and bit the straps enough that I could get free. I then lit a matchbook from my jacket pocket and threw it in the corner. They swam to it, and I could get by them and out of the room. I ran down the steps and stumbled onto Crawford’s body. His head was gone, and his neck was a twisted stump. I shoved myself off him, and the monster was there.

It looked nothing like Pretorious. It had the head that tied to swallow me before. The neck segmentation continued into a shell down its back. It had long winged arms with three extended fingers and webbing on its palms. It had no legs. It was designed to fly, and it had landed to attack Crawford. It squealed at me, and I ran back up the stairs. The railing was covered in creatures and water streamed from the attic. I tried to duck into a room. A giant hand stretched past me and closed the door. I had nowhere to go but the attic, and I stood in front of the resonator. It was still covered in dried foam, and sparks flew off it and bounced across the wood floor. It was louder than ever before, and the light pulsated. The timer was almost to zero. I moved to switch it off, and a hand grabbed my leg. I fell down and looked behind me. Pretorious had me, and he now looked as he did in the fetish room. The neck stalk was rearranging to his features. He was shedding the insect head, and it fell in globs to the floor.

“He laughed at me, but his head turned to the side and fingers poked through his lips. His mouth was shoved apart, and Crawford emerged screaming from it. He was intact and forcing himself out of Pretorious’s body. He told me to run, but the body fought back, wrapping him in tendons and pulling him back inside. The body sealed up, and Pretorious’s head burst out on the fibrous stalk. A hand popped out of the body and grabbed the head, forcing it against the belly. The face melted into the body and the legs gave way. It was a quivering mass, the three arms flailing. Then their two heads flowed out of the ridges and nodes and pulled away from each other. The skin melted to skulls, and they bit at each other on neck stalks. One of them turned to me and bit the hand holding my leg. The hand released me. I looked at the time, and I only had seconds left. I ran to the window, and the machine exploded. I was outside, in the grass, and my legs were broken. That’s where they found me.”

Katherine looked to Reiner. He flipped his hand open on the desk and raised his eyebrows. He had nothing else to add. Seaborn pulled some paper from between the last note page and the thick cardboard backing.

“According to the hospital notes, you were sedated for a week and through the court proceedings,” he said. “You appeared in court twice on charges of six counts of murder, the second time to receive the sentencing of ‘special inclusion’ to the facility. Do you remember that?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Your appointed attorney was advised by members of the Kingsport and Arkham hospitals, and they testified as to your fitness based on interviews with you and consultations with the facility staff here at Arkham.”

“So they tell me.” She offered a quick smile.

“OK, I think that covers it all, Dr. McMichaels. Thank you.” Seaborn closed the cover on his notepad folder and placed the pen back inside his shirt pocket under his suit jacket. He sat back and crossed a knee over the other. Katherine gave a deep sigh and relaxed in her chair. Reiner walked to the bathroom and pulled a disposable cup out of its dispenser. He filled it with cold water and handed it to her. She thanked him softly and drank it all. She put the cup on the table with a hollow pop.

“Do you think this account will help your therapy effort?”

“We’re just about to find out, doctor.” Seaborn picked up the smartphone and showed the display to her. It displayed a small green waveform and a number below it to the right. The display flickered through a series of double digit numerals. The waveform was a slow, steady line moving from right to left in lazy mounds and valleys. “This is an app we’re working on. An application, that is.”

“I’m not that far behind, Mister Seaborn.”

“Sorry.” He set the phone down on the table again turned so Katherine could watch the screen right side up. The wave continued.

“It looks like it’s registering sound. But the wave doesn’t change while we’re talking. Is it listening to us?” She leaned forward with her head hovering over it. Reiner stepped closer to look at it, and Katherine leaned slightly to the side so he could see.

“It’s on, but it’s not listening. It’s a minor field microwave emitter. Our phones are specially designed to broadcast it. I turned it on about a half-hour ago, right before you started talking.”

Katherine looked at him with a tilted chin and narrowed eyes. Reiner continued to look at the screen, his hands now restless in his coat pockets. “Broadcast,” he had said. Seaborn caught the implication immediately and raised a hand.

“No, it’s not transmitting our conversation. It in no way can listen or process what we say. It’s not designed for that.” Seaborn turned his head to look back at Katherine. “It’s a resonator.”

Katherine threw herself back into the chair and grasped the edges of the seat. “A what?” Seaborn stood up and held his palms out in front of him.

“I’m here to help you, Dr. McMichaels. There’s no need to worry.” His head faced Katherine’s but he looked over at Reiner as he spoke. “It’s tiny. It has nothing like the power of Pretorious’s machine. It can’t create that kind of vibration. No one is in danger. Look at the room. There’s no light. No breeze. We’re completely safe.”

Katherine slowly leaned forward to look again at the waveform. “So what is it doing?”

“Pretorious’s machine was a cumbersome, indelicate contraption. It was made to produce dangerous fields of vibration with no modulation. It was a jet engine. This is an electric razor. The field can only affect you within a few feet.”

“Affect me?” She slowly raised out of the chair. Her bad knee buckled, and she grabbed the wall for balance. Reiner grabbed her elbow to steady her. “What is it doing?”

“Stay close, doctor. Don’t move out of range. It’s fairly limited.” He stepped closer and picked up the phone, holding it flat in one hand while keeping the other hand palm out toward her. “But it seems to be working perfectly, I’m happy to say.

“Dr. McMichaels. Doctor Reiner. Pretorious’s machine produced a frequency that unknowingly attracted the creatures they saw. It didn’t just make them visible, it lured everything that could recognize it. It makes sense that a change to that modulation would do the opposite. We’ve been in this room for roughly an hour, and you’ve sat here and told us your story virtually all that time, since I turned on the app.

“Tell me, Doctor McMichaels.” Lowering the open palm into his pocket, he raised the phone slightly higher and looked at it as he spoke. “Have you seen any creatures in that time?”

Katherine turned her head and looked at the wall above her dresser. She saw nothing. She couldn’t remember seeing anything in all the time she talked. Nothing in her periphery. Nothing floating among them. Nothing in the distant fringe of her perception. No close fly-bys or rough shapes slouching out of focus. Not one creature did she perceive.

She sat up straight and looked at Reiner and then to Seaborn.

“No,” she whispered. She fought a smile before forgetting herself, and it blossomed into a childlike grin, wide and bright as the sun. “They’re gone.”

“That’s what we can do, Dr. McMichaels.” Seaborn put the phone back on the table and put the other hand in its pocket. He smiled to the side with soft pride. “We can make the monsters go away.

“And just maybe,” he said with a slight wobble of the shoulders. “We can get you out of here.”


	7. Chapter 7

Escorted by Reiner, Seaborn, and an orderly, Katherine walked with a noticeable limp along the perimeter of the floor holding the phone in front of her like the Diogenes lantern. She walked around every corner of the floor and scanned every nook. Once she was satisfied that the app was indeed driving away the creatures, she dropped her hands to her sides and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, held it for two seconds, and breathed out. Her eyes stayed closed. Maybe she would spot a creature if her vision wasn’t distracted. She wanted to trust the phone. She really did.

"I'd like to go back to my room now please." When Reiner realized her eyes would remain closed, he gently grabbed her elbow. Instead, she took his hand in hers and bent her arm around his. They walked together in slow stride back to her room with Seaborn and the orderly keeping pace a polite distance behind.

"You think she's ok?" Seaborn pocketed his hands and nodded hello to the other strolling patients in the hallway.

"I don't know, sir," the orderly said. "She seems tired. Something’s different."

"Have you noticed her flinching at all since you came back by the room?"

"Oh, that's it. She’s relaxed." The orderly watched her as her feet shuffled in blind footsteps. She looks a little taller now." He smiled and turned to Seaborn. "Is it the phone?"

"Yeah."

"We could have gotten her one of those phones years ago. I didn't know there was anyone for her to call."

"Has she got a surge protector for her computer? A power strip, maybe?"

The men found the right spot for the app radius to cover her room, and Seaborn drew a charger from his briefcase checked at the nurse's station. The phone sat on the corner of the computer desk. With the phone plugged in, the app could run continuously. Katherine occasionally scanned the room, turning in small circles and laughing. She composed herself and sat on the bed while the two men leaned against the dresser with crossed arms. The orderly was thanked and dismissed. He waved goodbye to Katherine as he closed the door.

"What does this mean for me, doctor?"

"Well, Kevin and I have talked about this since yesterday, and I keep telling him that your stay here is not a question of stability or safety, but one of court decree." Reiner scratched his head, affording him a rationale to look away from her. "Even if his gizmo worked, that wouldn't reduce the terms of the ruling.”

"But what about a restoration hearing? If I was deemed competent to stand trial --"

"Katherine, we have to take things slow. We have seen a reduction of one symptom. One. It's been less than three hours." He stood up and walked across to the computer desk chair to regard them both. "I'm as eager to proclaim recovery as you are, but this is so very preliminary. "

"Do you suppose the drastic change in the symptom will present a change in diagnosis?" Seaborn dropped his arms to rest his hands on the dresser edge and crossed one ankle over the other. He and Reiner exchanged a look that Katherine couldn't decode.

"That is unlikely. It wouldn't be just my observation. The other doctors in this wing would need to consult. Possibly in grand rounds. That is something I could suggest for the weekly meeting."

In grand rounds, doctors, residents, and students gathered in person or through video conferencing to share patient progress and notes. At times, a patient would be re-enacted by a volunteer to allow for differential diagnoses. If you hit a wall or needed a fresh perspective on a case, grand rounds was a safe venue.

"But you're her evaluator. Your voice would carry the most weight." Seaborn was pushing harder than Reiner appreciated.

With arms bent and tucked at his sides, he put his hands out at shoulder width and punctuated: "This is complicated. The existence of a developed pineal would be seen -- by many -- as a new symptom of schizophrenia. Not as a potential cause for it. Now, what your app has done has nothing to do with her pineal, correct?"

"That's right." Seaborn looked at Katherine. "We didn't turn off your pineal. This app creates a field to shoo away anything a developed pineal would perceive. Any other hints as to your pineal gland's hyperactivity would still exist."

"This doesn't sound like an abstract," Katherine said.

"No, we've seen this in other people."

"People with enlarged pineal glands?"

"Yes. Quite a few."

Katherine turned away and stared at the bedspread, blinking quickly and squinting. Reiner wondered if her perception of the creatures were returning. Maybe it was stress related. Or their disappearance was solely caused by Seaborn's suggestion. How had the conversation gone again? Did Seaborn ask about the creatures before Katherine said they were gone? He then realized she wasn't tracking motion; she was processing.

"But this happened because of the resonator. There were only the four of us exposed to it. How could there be others?"

"Well, Dr. McMichaels," Seaborn stood flat on his feet, speaking deliberately. "That phone is a resonator. Pretorious and Tillinghast weren't the only ones to make one."

Katherine stared before turning to Reiner. He shrugged.

"Scientific explorations don't happen in vacuums," Seaborn opened his gestures to both of them. "Whether it's happenstance or professional competition or what Dawkins called the meme, you often seen two unrelated parties pursing an idea. Now Pretorious had the notion, and Tillinghast had the mechanical know-how, and what they created was brilliant in many ways.

“But we all know the theory of pineal perception isn't even from the last century, and people have pursued various means to expand consciousness for as long as there have been narcotics and hallucinogens. They took that effort to mechanical means, and they made something so powerful that it worked far beyond what they expected. This was a small Chernobyl in their house.

"What my employer has done is follow a different tack. He can explain it better than I can, but imagine two different routes up a mountain. Pretorious scaled the cliff face, and we took the scenic path. In many ways, we're able to develop the app because of the notes recovered from his files at Miskatonic University. He started his research there, but when his ideas became more radical and the faculty refused to house his experiments on school property, he moved it to his house. And how his ideas progressed there, we can't know. Everything went up in the fire. We know only what you and Dr. Tillinghast saw.

"The reason I approached Doctor Reiner to speak with you is because we could use your help, Dr. McMichaels." He walked toward the bed and leaned now against the back of the room door. She had to turn away from Reiner to face Seaborn, and Reiner noticed it gave his words a conspiratorial air. "You have a unique development of the pineal. No one else as far as we know has weathered the exposure you have. Our app and the other resonators didn't produce the massive bandwidth of the Pretorious machine. Some of our developers thought Pretorious and Tillinghast's heads were missing because they had exploded, the way sound breaks glass. If the police photos of the machine and the tech used to control it are to be believed -- and you said they ran the entire house's power through it -- you're lucky to be here. The machine could have killed you before any creatures arrived."

"So your people and others have proof of the creatures?" Katherine asked. She sat upright and eager. Evidence of what she's seen would be a godsend. "Is that how you could focus on them?"

"We haven't seen them. No one else who has used a resonator has seen them because no one has pursued pineal expansion with the recklessness of Pretorious. We extrapolated the frequencies from his notes at the school. Frankly, until I turned the app on in this room, we had no idea if the tone had any effect at all. You're proof that we're on the right track of helping people with hyper-aware pineals. That's why we came to you. You're our barometer."

"She might be," Reiner noted. "We would still need to discuss this with the board. This becomes complex. We're talking about access to Katherine for a new clinical trial. We're also looking at adjustment of her diagnosis, which the board has been very stubborn about after all this time, and there may be a legal concern about anyone interacting with you, Dr. McMichaels. We would need to talk to the trustee chair, at the very least, and possibly the DA's office."

"I agree," Seaborn said. "That's why my company set up a meeting with myself, the DA's office, and the trustee chair early next week." Reiner's eyebrows narrowed just slightly. "The DA requested we meet at his office. And I hope, after our recent conversations and our talk today with Dr. McMichaels, you could join us in the capacity as her evaluator."

Katherine looked at him over the shoulder of her arm holding her upright on the bed. She looked years younger even now, and he wondered what the first good night's rest in decades would do for her tomorrow. She had something new in her expression, something he had mourned for years ago. Hope. If she had any chance of leaving these walls in her lifetime, he could make that happen.

"Of course," he said. "We'll tell them we have new information for them to consider."

Reiner wondered how long Seaborn had planned such a gathering. He had been prepared for and successfully won over himself and Katherine within a few hours of introductions to each. What did he have planned for the trustee chair? Or the DA?

Seaborn said he would contact the other parties to confirm the arrangement and began his goodbyes to Katherine. She rose off the bed and shook his hand with both of hers. Then she hugged him and collected herself with some embarrassment. Seaborn joked about needing to get a new phone by tomorrow before admitting he had a few spares in his hotel room. You never know.

Reiner also hugged Katherine goodbye and congratulated her. He noted he would instruct the nurses to check her regularly for any adverse effects or changes in behavior via the cameras, and he would return tomorrow for his own observation. Then he closed the door behind him and walked Seaborn to the elevator banks.

Katherine stood in the middle of the room for a few minutes after her door closed. Then she went to the bathroom and stripped off the business blouse and the hospital pants. She turned on the shower water to a high temperature and waited for the water to steam up the stall's frosted glass and the mirrors and the bathroom cameras. She stepped in, turned her back to the showerhead, and let the water coat her shoulders and back, changing her skin color bright red.

She braced herself on the shower walls, eased herself down to a sitting position, and carefully stretched her knees out before her. And when she was fully settled and comfortable under the stream of water, she inhaled deep, letting the shower fog permeate her lungs. She held it for three seconds before she started to shudder, and when she let go of the breath, it was accompanied by a sad, deep low like a calf, and her tears ran with a heat that shamed the shower water.


	8. Chapter 8

The Essex District Attorney office represents 37 towns in Massachusetts, including Arkham, Salem, Ipwich, and Kingsport. It occupies a six-floor brick building on a thin road called Federal Street in the county seat of Salem. Behind it is the confluence of the Danvers and North Rivers at the Beverly Harbor.

From its top floor, you can look left and just see the roof of the Salem Witch Museum, a converted church a block and a half away. Established as a cultural touchstone in the early 1970s in the wake of the success of Arthur Miller's The Crucible and Bewitched, it’s dedicated to the true depiction of the witch trials, the deaths of the 20 men and women resulting from them, and the broader advocacy and remembrance of all innocents persecuted for cultural expediency. In 1992, the 300th anniversary of the trials, a memorial was christened by Elie Weisel.

Less than a half-mile to the right of the DA office building is the Witch Dungeon Museum, where you can watch daily live recreations of the trials. Afterward, you can tour the cells housing actors portraying those found guilty and awaiting punishment. Of the 20 people held in suspicion, 18 were hanged after being found guilty. One of those was squeezed to death under stones because he would not enter a plea; the other died in her cell. One of the 15 accused women, one was deemed a witch because she had arrived at a friend's house with no mud on her shoes. Another was a flirty tavern owner. The jury had found one suspect not guilty before being coerced by the judges to enter another plea.

The DA's building does not face these agencies but looks directly ahead at Palmer Cove and beyond to the Kingsport General building where Dr. McMichaels had been surrounded by ethereal monsters for 27 years. She couldn’t see it from her room. She instead faced out toward Dolliber Cove, Salem Sound, and the sea.

Catty-corner and within 20 yards of the DA's office is St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church and its blazing white steeple. After parking his rental, Seaborn lead Reiner past this, through the small intersection of St. Peter and Federal, and toward the building for his 3:15 appointment with First Assistant District Attorney Cecilia Doverton. Seaborn had Googled the directions.

"How can you not have come here before?" Seaborn rooted inside his briefcase as they walked.

"It's not my thing," Reiner took the opportunity to look around without breaking stride. "My daughter told me all about it when she came here for a class trip. That was enough for me."

"Not even for Halloween?"

"It's hard enough trying to find a parking space today. Think about what this place looks like in October. It's Disneyland. Or World. What's the one in Florida?

"No idea."

"We live five miles away from here, and we see the traffic out our window. Companies hire shuttles to bring visitors into town, and those people park their cars near our house. They meander around trying to find the meeting place. Makes trick-or-treating too dangerous so we stay in. I was relieved when my Kelly got too old for it anymore."

"The realtors didn't mention all this when you moved here, I suppose."

"No, they left that out. Trees, they said. Access to water. Plenty of things for kids to do. We were moving here anyway for the job, but all that helped make it easier for Kelly."

"How many times did she dress up as a witch?"

"Never. None of the local kids want to dress up as a witch. It's too common. They save that stuff for when they're teenagers and then they get the makeup and the hair dye."

"Fashionably witchy. I know someone like that. Your girl go through that?"

"Not yet," Reiner said. "Knock on wood."

"A superstitious psychologist?"

"Well, when in Rome."

They waited in the joint suite of the two office administrators who guard the way to Doverton and DA Loudon Franklin. The latter kept a second office near the district court and was unable to make the meeting; Doverton had stepped in to meet with them and Dr. Stanley Key of the Kingsport General Board.

Reiner checked his phone messages and calendar. Seaborn scanned the room. The waiting office was lined with shelves of law books and heavy photo frames used as bookends. Franklin was shown standing next to congressmen and regional luminaries. The backgrounds suggested country clubs and fundraisers. It was less a display of legal clout and more of presumed celebrity. Doverton's photos were of her family vacations -- big dogs and tanned kids in swim trunks. There were no photos of the two attorneys together.

Franklin had been DA for 30 years, and the Arkham Slaughter raised him to national prominence, although that had not propelled him to higher elected office. He tried though. Two Congressional primaries against the incumbent ended in close losses before the representative retired. Franklin won that primary easily but lost the general election in a wave of midterm support for the new president. Seaborn was disappointed he wouldn't be here today but not terribly surprised. He spent the previous night reading up on Doverton's bio.

The phone chirped once at the desk outside Doverton's office 15 minutes after the appointment time. The office assistant walked around the desk to Seaborn and Reiner's chairs and informed them Doverton was ready. She escorted them to the office door and closed it behind them. Dr. Key stood behind his guest chair at Doverton's desk, buttoning his suit and straightening his tie. His gray mustache barely hid his rolled lips.

Doverton stood up behind her desk only after the door closed. She was wearing a bright blue suit harshly hemmed at the waist. Large gold chevron earrings shone beneath a jet black bob haircut and picked up the trim of her scarf. She sidled out from her desk slightly with a light handshake for both men before gesturing to a small table in the corner of her office. Small stacks of paperwork denoted her spot at the end of the table, facing out from the corner. The other men took their seats with Seaborn and Reiner sitting with their backs to the windows. Key sat opposite them at Doverton's left elbow.

"Gentlemen, I'm glad we could get together today," Doverton looked down at her papers as she spoke. "I understand this is your first time in Salem." She tilted her head slightly with a news anchor's smile to Seaborn, her pointed eyebrows arched a tad. "Although it's the off-season, so it's much quieter here than usual."

"No, I appreciate the slower pace," Seaborn unbuttoned his jacket and set his briefcase in the chair to his right. "There was barely a line at the coffee shop. I could get used to that."  
They all chuckled politely.

"Dr. Key says you hadn't been in town before, doctor. Is that right?"

"It's true, ma'am." Reiner jerked the chair loser to the table. Its wheels caught the edge of a plastic mat between the table legs and the carpet.

"Oh, please excuse that," Doverton leaned over to check his legs below the edge of the table. "My grandkids love to play under the table, and they'll tear up the rug unless I put something down."

"It's fine," Reiner said.

"I had to keep a small box of toys in my office closet," Key added. "The other doctors on my hall swear they're for me." He and Doverton leaned toward each other to share the laugh. Doverton let the laugh fade between her teeth before she turned to Seaborn and rested her forearms on the table.

"So, Mister Seaborn, you wanted us to talk about the McMichaels case today. I've had the office compile the history, and I reviewed it over the weekend. Reiner, I'm glad you could be here to speak on her behalf and update my office on her condition. Dr. Key, of course, you have acted as liaison for this office and are here to speak on behalf of the facility that's housed her under court decree all these years. I believe I have all the particulars correct, but Mister Seaborn, I admit, I'm not sure exactly what your stake is in this case."

"Mrs. Doverton, I do appreciate the time each of you have taken from your schedule."   
Seaborn pulled his jacket fringe from underneath him and shot his cuffs before opening his eyes to Doverton and Key. "But I wanted to talk about the time taken from Dr. McMichaels."

Doverton turned a smile to the left and blinked once. "Dr. McMichaels was admitted to Kingsport General after being found unfit to stand trial. Had she not, she faced prosecution on three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder. She faced life without parole, and only the 1982 referendum against capital punishment saved her from the death penalty."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm familiar with the case. And I have spoken with Doctor Reiner about a potential new therapy for Dr. McMichaels that already seems promising. I understand Dr. Key spoke to Dr. McMichaels soon after her initial session."

"I have, and I think it's much too early to speak of any increase in privileges for her." Dr. Key's hands were laced near his face, and he spoke to the side of them. "I'm hopeful your new therapy can be of help for her, but we would need to see some dramatic improvement over a number of months perhaps before we can discuss moving her with the court. That's the position of the board, and I told Dr. Reiner that over the weekend."

"Yes, sir. He and I have spoken at length about the case and the hospital's position. I understand the hospital is not by itself empowered to adjust her commitment. Which I why I wanted to speak to both of you – perhaps to Mister Franklin as well -- about the effects of the therapy and a subsequent relocation to pursue it further."

"Mister Seaborn," Doverton joined her hands in front of herself and pulled close to the table. "If Dr. McMichaels were to be deemed stabilized and lucid, it's very likely this office would petition the court for a restoration hearing. If she was found to be competent to stand trial, she would be prosecuted on those same charges. The witness testimony has been preserved and may still be admitted into evidence. The case is considered very strong."

"Mrs. Doverton, I believe the case is a tangle of shoddy investigation that wouldn’t hold up to reasonable doubt. I think the DA’s office knew this and entered into collusion with the Kingsport facility to scapegoat Dr. McMichaels."

Key and Doverton blinked at each other.

"I admit fully that she has suffered from a malady that requires medical assistance, and my company believes we can provide that and has, in fact, already begun providing it. But we believe that malady has been continually ignored in favor of the more convenient diagnosis of schizophrenia."

"Doctor, is this also your opinion?" Key looked at Reiner over his hands.

"I am of the mind that the initial and sustained diagnosis may be incorrect.” Reiner spoke carefully and kindly. “And I'm glad the board has supported my decision to halt all medications to treat schizophrenia for the time being. But that square-one position should not be used as a status quo. We need to move forward in a new direction. Mister Seaborn's therapy may pave the way for that."

"Mister Seaborn, what do you mean shoddy evidence and collusion?" Doverton sat back in her chair. "What benefit would be gained by conspiring against Dr. McMichaels?"

"The public wanted someone to be punished for those deaths, and she was unable to defend herself. Also the incompetence ruling allowed the facility to hide a gross disdain of policy and standards by one of its most prominent physicians. That would open the facility to a possible loss of accreditation and lawsuits.”

Dr. Key chuckled and scooted back his chair. “Reiner, if I were you, I’d leave with me right now. Miss Doverton, I apologize on behalf of my colleague. I wasn’t informed of the true purpose of this meeting, and I intend to bring up this matter to the board.”

“Did the board ever talk about why Dr. Bloch ordered shock therapy on Dr. McMichaels?” Seaborn bent an elbow onto one armrest and palmed the other. “Within ten minutes of her arrival at Kingsport following the death of Sgt. Brownlee, Bloch ordered a nurse to prepare her and shouted down reminders of hospital policy. There’s written testimony regarding that, including from Detective Jordan Fields.

“We also have accounts from orderlies who wrestled her to the procedure despite no mention of her acting violently. Scared and confused, yes, but not a danger to herself or others. There is no record, however, of any use of anesthetics, muscle relaxants, or mild paralytic. She was, according to two orderlies and the nurse, strapped down to the gurney still lucid and conversant with no prior medication or even a clear diagnosis. Was that hospital policy? Is it still?”

Dr. Key stood in front of bookshelves, his fingertips tenting his hand above the table. “Dr. Bloch operated under the full faith of the board. The patient was obviously violent. She escaped from the straps and killed Bloch and two EMTs.”

“No, and here’s why: News of Bloch’s attack caused a ruckus. She was found unresponsive and missing an eye. A good chunk of her brain was missing. The orderly administering the therapy – an orderly, mind you – was summoned to assist with Bloch and help find Tillinghast, who was missing. Now how could McMichaels have killed Bloch if she was strapped to a gurney?”

“Dr. McMichaels is a paranoid schizophrenic who is responsible for the deaths of six people.” Key recited this in an annoyed monotone. “She is the very definition of a violent patient. The deaths of Bloch and two EMTs at our hospital – “

“And that brings me to the investigation directed by this office, Miss Doverton.” Seaborn turned away completely from Key and to her, swiveling his chair slightly. “Two vehicles were stolen from the hospital soon after Bloch’s death. One was a van, the other an ambulance. Dispatch records show the ambulance arrived at the hospital with a male suffering from hyperthermia exacerbated by high alcohol content in his blood. The two EMTs driving that ambulance were killed soon after they arrived, and the ambulance stolen and driven to the Pretorious house. That’s where the van went as well. The line from the initial DA argument was that Tillinghast took the van, and McMichaels took the ambulance after killing the EMTs. One of them had an eye removed and his brain disassembled. The other had her head caved in on the asphalt.”

“Your point, Mister Seaborn?”

“Seven years ago, the evidence catalog was made public via a Freedom of Information Act petition by a newspaper reporter. Why weren’t the fingerprints taken from the vehicles after the house fire entered into evidence? Is it because they showed McMichaels drove the van, and Tillinghast drove the ambulance after he killed the EMTs? Also why weren’t the forensic reports from the facility deaths in the DA’s planned exhibits? Bloch was found in a cold-storage room with an opened bucket of brains. Some of those had been chewed upon. So had her face. I bet those bite marks and incidentals on her supraorbital ridge and the zygomatic bone -- and those on the male EMT -- match Crawford’s dental records. Not those of Dr. McMichaels.”

“There are no dental records for Crawford Tillinghast.” Doverton leaned toward Seaborn and adopted a triumphant tone. “There was no head to X-ray.”

“Maybe not, but following her committal, the hospital now has McMichaels’s dental records, and I bet they don’t match the forensics on Bloch and the EMT.” Doverton made an obvious effort to look at her papers and not at Key.

“Miss Doverton, after Pretorious’s murder, which started this chain of events, the house wasn’t searched. Tillinghast was initially the suspect, but the argument against McMichaels quickly pointed to her as Pretorious’s killer despite the lack of any evidence she was in the house before she went there accompanied by Tillinghast and Brownlee. After her commitment, she repeatedly said that she and Brownlee played a tape in VCR upstairs. It was of Pretorious assaulting a woman. It was S&M. McMichaels said it was pretty rough, possibly veering from consensual.

“Because Tillinghast seemed so obvious a suspect at the time, the house wasn’t searched. Brownlee found those tapes there and played one at random. That’s the one he and McMichaels saw. The tapes were only removed and cataloged after Brownlee’s death. The tape contents and the rest of the catalog was made public after a Freedom of Information Act petition five years ago. The women on the tapes weren’t identified. No effort was made to identify them. Do you know what I would call those women, Miss Doverton, those women in their various costumes and positions of sexual coercion to a high-profile academic in the area university?”

“What, Mister Seaborn?”

“Suspects. And not one of them was tracked down and questioned. Not even to establish some connection to McMichaels. She became the lone suspect after the house fire when what was left of Crawford’s body was found the same way as Pretorious’s. The neighbor woman never mentioned seeing McMichaels when she entered the house after her dog. That makes four of the six murders now open to question.

“Add in the forensics on Brownlee. He was eviscerated. None of the blood found on her or Tillinghast matched the officer’s. That’s five. The only one left is Crawford, who died seemingly in the exact same way as Pretorious, and neither head was ever found. Can you claim that she recreated a murder someone else committed? Do you logically suggest she had an accomplice all along? If so, why wasn’t that person alleged in the investigation?

“When Dr. McMichaels was called to examine Tillinghast for his own competency hearing, she requested a CT scan to pursue his claims of pineal agitation. She cited the findings of the scan as the rationale for giving Tillinghast the benefit of the doubt in his assertion that something attacked Pretorious, the same claim later made by McMichaels. There were four people in the room when McMichaels made the suggestion. Two of them are dead, and another has been locked up for 27 years. That leaves Detective Fields, who went on to investigate the deaths of Brownlee, Bloch, and the EMTs, as the only credible witness to mention the pineal theory. Twenty-seven years, Dr. Key, and the facility only scanned McMichaels within the last year, and that was by Reiner. And can you guess what was found? An enlarged pineal. A condition that calls into question the diagnosis, yet that continues to be ignored by the facility.

“Miss Doverton, that’s all six murder charges undermined in ten minutes. There’s also shade thrown over the handling of the lone suspect’s diagnosis which is crucial to her competence standing with the court. That prevents her from facing the evidence in a trial. Meanwhile, the DA has kept her as a political piñata for his campaigns for this office and others. This office even evoked Willie Horton to prevent her from having any movement outside the facility walls.

“If this gets out – and let me be blunt: I can make that happen – she’s gonna own that facility, the land on which it sits, and all your golf courses. I think that’s why the DA handed this conversation to you, Miss Doverton. I think he saw today’s guest list and did the math. And I think the readers of newspapers and viewers of news shows will do the math as well on all the questions I just mentioned. The town weekly, the daily paper, the local network affiliates, the cable channels, and that’s not even the online outlets. How’s this for a headline: ‘Salem’s Latest Witch Trial.’ ”

Key sat back down. Doverton thumbed one of the large earrings.

“Or. The office and facility petition the court for a transfer to an in-patient clinic in New York. If the therapy proves successful, and I’m sure it will, neither protests the privilege of limited free movement there. As far as you two are concerned, McMichaels disappears. The facility prospers. You can raise funds and grants from trustees no longer embarrassed to be associated with her. The only one who loses is the DA. And I’d say he’s cashed this chip enough for 25 years.”

“Mister Seaborn.” Doverton floated her hands over the paperwork for a moment before drawing her hands together. She inhaled and raised her head with a closed smile. “Any such motion will need to be considered by the DA very carefully. It will take time. Unless there’s reason to think she’s in danger in the facility,” Key’s head jumped at this, “there’s no reason to hurry to relocate Dr. McMichaels.”

“Of course. I’ll give him until tomorrow.” Doverton chuckled softly as Seaborn stood and adjusted the waist of his pants. “Dr. McMichaels is also a golden goose for the facility for state money. I imagine the trustees would want to understand why they’re losing their regular state income.” He stared at Key..

“Then again they might be glad to be rid of her. But why should I take the chance? She can pursue the therapy at the new facility with hopefully little danger of, say, suddenly developing complications overnight that would prevent her transfer.” Key returned the stare now.

“Are you suggesting that you will transport Dr. McMichaels,” Key asked after sliding a hand across his forehead. “Someone who has not seen sunlight without the filter of a cage frame or a frosted window in 27 years?”

“Oh, God, no. Dr. Reiner will.” Reiner did a perfect double take. “As her evaluator, he’s best qualified to monitor her in the transfer. The facility can arrange an adjustment of his obligations.”

“I can’t just leave, Seaborn.” Doverton and Key were utterly forgotten.

“Roundtrip bus fare is $40.” Seaborn hoisted the briefcase by the handles with a flourish. “It’s an hour flight. The company will comp you. Dr. Key, this would be acceptable to you?”

“Given your concerns,” Key coughed. “I don’t think the board will object.”

“Excellent. We should go.” Reiner had remained seated the entire time, and it took a second for him to take Seaborn’s direction. He stood with a start. “Miss Doverton, please pass along my invitation for District Attorney Franklin to call me if he has any questions. And please let him know I’m sorry he wasn’t here.”

“I suspect he’ll say the same, Mister Seaborn.” She stood now stiffly with long fingernails stretched onto her paperwork. “It should be no time at all to prepare the proper petition with the court with Dr. Key’s approval.”

“No time at all.” Key seemed to have lost a good inch of stature. It was hard to tell if he was deflated or clenched. He stared at Reiner as he walked with Seaborn to the office door. Seaborn walked back to the table, his hand extended

“Thank you for your time, Miss Doverton.” He shook her hand with vigor, meeting her light grasp with a hefty squeeze. “You should know that neither I nor my company holds any animosity toward you. This is squarely on the shoulders of Franklin and Key. You might lessen his indignation if you point out how easily he’s able to walk away from this. If he lets her walk away, that is.”

Seaborn looked at Key and realized he needn’t extend his hand to him. He buttoned his suit jacket as he backed toward the office door, which Reiner held open.

“That sounded better in my head, but I’m sure you can improve it.”

“Mister Seaborn,” Doverton walked away from the table and around the far corner of her desk. She pulled out the chair and sat without looking at him. “Let’s not meet again.”

“That’s not up to me, ma’am. It’s all up to you.” And he closed the door behind him.


	9. Chapter 9

When Katherine was informed that she was being relocated to New York, she had virtually nothing to pack. Her wardrobe had been whittled down to a few days’ worth of blouses, underthings, and socks. Everything else – from hairpin to nail polish -- was supplied by the hospital. The pants she wore were one of three identical pairs in different colors bought by the second-shift nurse as a goodbye present. She was also given a simple pair of black sneakers; they provided the most support for her knees.

Franklin had successful petitioned the court to allow the facility to transfer custody. There was no press release, but word got out via the Arkham Tribune court reporter. To ensure the scoop, he quickly uploaded a story to the various online platforms of the paper and then his own. The story was quickly picked up by the local channels, and news vans camped at the courthouse, both of the DA’s offices, and the Kingsport facility. Franklin had very little comment, except to say he and the facility board agreed that McMichaels could receive better treatment elsewhere.

“Depriving her of the opportunity to regain her mind would be as cruel as the crimes for which she was committed.” Franklin saw the cameramen standing at the bottom of the staircase outside the courthouse and remained on the landing so they would have to look up at him. Instead of looking down at them and pressing his chin against itself for the news footage, he held his head high, looking at cars across the street. It gave him a regal air. It was this attention to packaging that helped him hold the DA seat for 30 years.

Katherine’s room faced away from the facility parking lots so she saw none of the bustle, not even the camera lights for the live 11 pm remotes. She had no notion of her prominence in the community or beyond it. Her sources for news were overheard conversations between the facility employees or small talk during conversations with Reiner. There had been one day when he came by specifically to tell her of events that shook the country, and they spent a few hours talking about what it might mean. For Katherine, nothing changed. Her view was the same. Her daily regimen was the same. She could have been on a space station, silently anchored by gravity in an artificial life system. She populated a satellite.

Because of her terms of confinement, she didn’t get much opportunity to mingle with the other patients. They were technically forbidden, but the staff made allowances depending on behavior trends -- hers and the others’. No one else had been there as long. Some had died in their rooms of old age or deterioration exacerbated by medication. That remained Katherine’s fear. She had calloused to the creatures’ years of traffic, and her flinches were based on proximity and motion. But the antipsychotics and relaxants blended days and nights to indistinct smudges and stunted her thoughts, and still the creatures swam about her. Those were the worst days, immobile and muted amid a deep-field aquarium of stalks and teeth and limbs. That was when she wished the monsters could finally seize her with webs and teeth and turn off her damaged mind with a quick crunch she easily imagined in her cheekbones. Those were the worst days.

Today was the opposite. Today she had the app and a safe bubble in which she could move and the common perception of lucidity. Not all the symptoms of her pineal development had abated, but the most obvious signs were imperceptible. She discovered how much her body had clenched by habit, and she was learning to relax day by day. Her libido was still rabid, but rehab exercises and her hyper-prim discipline squelched it to a stifled murmur.

Reiner surprised her with a small suitcase for her departure from a travel-and-gifts store in a shopping mall along his commute. It was a plain black shell with raised marbling. Katherine had fully expected to leave with all her items carried in a paper-and-twine hospital gift bag. Because it’s a logistic impossibility to surprise someone with a suitcase, Reiner decided to enter her room holding in front of him with a red bow on top.

“I thought you’d travel better in this.” Katherine was sitting at her computer desk, waiting for him to retrieve her. Members of the staff had come by all morning to wish her well and congratulate her. Each had noticed her radical improvement in demeanor. She also seemed brighter from nearly seven nights of deep sleep.

“This is a stern suitcase, doctor.” She braced herself on the desk chair to stand and greet him. “The one I used before for conferences was a garish old thing. This looks professional.”

“That was the ‘80s. Everything was garish.” Reiner saw her items folded on the dresser top and placed the suitcase on the bed so she could pack with minimal movement. “But I picked a plain shell for you so you could cover it with all those destination stickers. You’re going back out into the world. I hope you see as much as you want.”

Katherine sucked in her lips a little and blinked at him. She walked to him with arms wide and gently fell against him. He was a head taller, and his arms wrapped around her shoulders easily.

“You worked hard for this, doctor.” He patted her on the back as she took deep breaths against him.

“You worked hard for me. You found something to help me.” She pulled back and angled the phone off her waistband to show him the waveform. “This little doo-dad is letting me walk out of here.” She began placing the clothes in the suitcase. “I still need to write a letter to Bubba’s family. They wouldn’t allow me to before the petition to relocate. I want them to know I still remember how much he helped me. And Crawford.”

“They’ll appreciate that. Is there anything you need me to get from the bathroom?” He walked over to it and gave a peek even after she said no. It was of course spotless. Reiner noticed her hyper-prim remained intact. Even the orderlies stopped cleaning her room when they realized she was glad to do it and so well. It wasn’t so bad a habit to develop as long as her repression didn’t become pathological. He’d have to monitor that during the trip. The suitcase was already packed when he turned off the bathroom light. She closed the case with a gentle press and turned to him.

“I haven’t flown since 1984. There was a conference in Chicago, and I was part of a panel of young psychologists. I had the best dinner at a restaurant a few blocks from the hotel. A pack of us walked there, ate like hogs, and staggered back. We flirted with the poor elevator man, and I slept in a bed the size of my apartment.” She was facing out the window and talking almost in monotone. “Will I get to do anything like that in New York?”

“If the therapy goes well for the first few weeks, I don’t see why not.” Reiner picked up the suitcase. “When was the last time you went to sleep on a full stomach?”

“The night in the house. Bubba made dumplings. They were the size of my head. I tried to stay awake while Crawford fixed the resonator, but I fell asleep at the attic desk. Before I knew it, I woke up, and they were looking at me. I was probably snoring.” She turned toward Reiner and picked up a small vase of flowers with a card signed by the day staff. “I’ll mention that meal in my letter to his family.”

“I’ll talk to the assistant DA about finding their address. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to write it at the new facility. I’ll make sure you can have stationary.”

“I’d like that.”

Reiner opened the door and stepped outside. He wanted Katherine to have the chance to turn out the lights and close the door as she left. She glanced over her shoulder and pressed the bedspread flat one last time. She turned out the light and closed the door quietly to preserve the last silent moments. Standing in front of it, she could see her reflection in the darkened door window. She sighed with relief at leaving all the monsters here, behind that door and inside that room forever.

She was wrong.


	10. Chapter 10

The Vincent Amfortas Psychiatric Clinic in upper Manhattan is a ten-story semicircle building, gray and reflective. It sits across the street from the Columbia University Mailman School of Health and represents the western edge of the Columbia University Medical Center campus, a mile-long strand of buildings along the Hudson River. The clinic is connected to the Mailman School by two catwalks high above I-95.

The clinic is split into two halves titled Units 12 and 13 South based on their postal numbers. Unit 12 is dedicated to therapy cycles for those afflicted with eating disorders, and Unit 13 serves those with affective, psychotic, and substance abuse disorders. This wing can house up to 30 patients at a time, all undergoing various modes of therapy, with access if necessary to the university’s psychiatric department.

It’s a quick trip to the Amfortas Clinic from Newark International Airport, maybe 30 minutes from one curb to the other. Take the terminal exit onto I-78, pay the toll, turn onto the New Jersey Tunrpike, cross the river, and turn right. It’s on this trip that Katherine is dazzled in the babble of talk and transport.

The taxi she rode in from the Kingsport facility to Boston’s Logan Airport was a minivan built ten years after her commitment. The driver in Massachusetts was a large man with a slight whistle in his breath. He listened to one of the satellite radio stations devoted to Elvis Presley and offered unsolicited bits of trivia for every song. Katherine devoured every word. She hadn’t heard the sounds of a car in more than two decades: the bell alerting an open door, the turn signal, all that. The car seemed surprisingly spry to her even for a minivan. When she wasn’t offering polite conversational acknowledgements, she was mesmerized by the GPS monitor and buildings and billboards along the route. The terrain was almost unrecognizable to her.

The security measures for the airport were of no consequence. She delighted in any opportunity to speak with people, and they were helpful with her walking stick. It was a simple, red wooden cane bought from the same travel store her suitcase came from, and Reiner bought it just in case. Katherine didn’t want to need it, but he saw it as a not-so-subtle cue for courtesy, and that certainly couldn’t hurt someone getting back out into the world. She appreciated the large sunglasses they picked up in the hospital gift shop right before leaving. She kept them on the whole trip. Reiner warned her about clamorous newspeople, but they hadn’t seen a recent picture of her in years, and she slid out of town easily. She worried her knees would act up on the flight, but they handled it just fine, though she was grateful it was only a short hop over Connecticut.

The taxi that drove her from Newark to within eyesight of the Bronx was a Toyota Prius, and this was a wonder of the age. The silence of the engine, compared to the rest of the world about her, was astonishing, more so than the volume and variety of food shops in both airports. When she and Reiner walked up to the car outside the NJ terminal, she thought it had broken down. Once inside, Reiner provided the address but not the name of the clinic. The driver punched it into the GPS and asked for confirmation after pulling onto the express road.

“Amfortas Clinic, correct?” He was a rail thin older man, as physically opposite to their first driver as possible.

“Yes, that’s for me.” Katherine again plunged eagerly into small talk.

“Are you a doctor?” He shot his eyes repeatedly to the road and the rearview.

“This time, I’m a patient.” She tried to set him up for a punchline with a straight face, but she couldn’t hold the smile in. “I’m the crazy one.”

“Well, hey, you came to the right city.” Home run. Her laugh bubbled throughout the car.

They were met inside the clinic lobby by Seaborn.

“Welcome back to the world, doctor.” They shook hands, and he took her suitcase from Reiner, who pulled his own behind him. “What surprised you the most so far?”

“Coffee got expensive. But really, really good.”

“Wait for the seasonals. My girlfriend will go there twice a day.”

“What does she do?” They walked toward an elevator. Reiner expected to meet some representatives from the clinic, but Seaborn seemed to know where he was going.

“She’s in sales for a tech company for the visually and hearing impaired. She goes around the country for conventions.” Seaborn pushed the floor button with barely a look, which furthered connoted to Reiner his familiarity with the building. “We met at a tech show actually. We joke that we represent supply and demand.”

“So you’re not a salesman for your company? You’re a buyer?”

“Oh, no. My title is Procurement Specialist.” He pocketed his hands and watched the numbers blink on the vertical panel at the side of the doors. “I don’t buy. I fetch.”

“So what did you fetch on this trip to Massachusetts?” The doors parted revealing a brown wall with carpeted texture. Seaborn turned and rubbed a tear duct with one finger. They stepped out onto the hallway’s dark red rug and dim lighting.

“You, doctor. I was sent to fetch you.”

The elevator doors closed shut behind them. A ringtone chirped from Seaborn’s suit jacket. He answered it.

“Hi.” Head bowed, he stood in place and turfed a small knot in the carpet. Reiner shrugged and shook his head at Katherine’s silent question. “Yeah, they just got here. We do. I was just about to, sir. Right. See you then. Bye.” He tucked the phone back and spoke over his shoulder as he walked down the hall. “He’s on the way.”

Katherine had some difficulty following; he was moving at a good clip, and her legs were getting tired from the day’s travels. “Who?”

“My boss.” Seaborn swung his head to face forward and started snapping his fingers. “He really wants to meet you.”


	11. Chapter 11

Andrew Mitchell thumbed his phone off and nested it in his pants pocket. He stood in the unfinished top floor of a glass and iron office building on the Upper East Side. His view allowed a high angle view of the southeast of Central Park and the Arsenal Building. Behind that is the park’s zoo complex with a half-mile of deep green between it and Lincoln Center in the distance. Car horns and whistles rose up from the southbound traffic. Mitchell stood with his hands in his pockets watching small flocks chase each other in the park’s cherries and magnolias.

He loved the park, had visited it many times when he returned to his family in the school summer breaks. They were a family constantly under the radar of the New York elite with more than enough to thrive but not so much to advertise it. He was the last of the Mitchells and had been for years. His hair was more silver than hers when sickness claimed her. He preferred suits of a flat gray patina that contrasted with his hair. It was a crown, well earned, and he stood proud beneath it here in his tony kingdom. This was not a time of laurels, however; he was close to inviting something new into the world. He was so close.

It was a little before noon, and he realized he forgot to eat breakfast. His mornings for the past month have been hectic, moving between the members of the research, coding, design, and marketing groups. Every time he thought about the setbacks and arguments, he reminded himself he didn’t have to worry about investors too. That helped. That kind of relativism was a better indicator of his wealth than the numbers thrown at him by his accountants. 

The topography of the broad floor was made up of clusters of convention props – retractable banner frames, stacked brown boxes, and vacuum-sealed office supplies. One side of the room was all glass and metal trim. The floor was separated from it by a good 10 feet, leaving open air that reached down to the bottom floor of the building. Each floor had a deep gray metal rail running the length of the floor to prevent tumbles. This topmost space Mitchell occupied featured light green carpet from the rail to the flat tan wall behind him.

Midway through the room was a flat screen TV on a simple stand with two video game consoles. Controllers sat on a black couch facing the TV with its back to the winding staircase on the near wall. In the far corner, in front of the emergency exit sign and fire door, was a whiteboard of red and black notes and equations. It was attended by two matching office chairs and a bright blue bean bag. They each had an empty fast-food drink cup and a few napkins. Mitchell would have to talk to the crew about the campfire rule as it applied to office space.

The sounds of their collective effort – chatter, laughter, typing and computer tones -- carried up through the flue of negative space between the windows and the rails. This high floor was topped with an arched roof with floating ceiling partitions and string lights and descending, frosted green glass cubes and deep green marble tiles. It will eventually be the conference room, Mitchell hoped. Now it was a space to stretch the brain and the legs. The work was downstairs on a handful of floors. If it were seen from the outside, the viewer would see an accidental pyramidal hierarchy with Mitchell as the capstone. His initial idea flowed downward, and the crunched numbers and realized notions circulated back up to him. Marketing was below him, then design, then coding, then the lobby. The tech room was in a building basement subsection completely walled off to muffle the racket of servers. His block of offices was built atop an existing building and walled in with the glass. Between the Mitchell offices and the building basement were two dozen floors of rented offices. He owned it all.

Down in the basement’s dim cave of random technology, access and process were mined. On the floors far above it, those elements were refined and molded. This was a thought factory, taking something invisible and making it portable in a convenient bubble of glass and plastic. This was where the new resonators were born. Like the ones now carried by Katherine and Seaborn and one Doctor Howard Brayson a few doors down 63rd Street from the Mitchell offices. The rest were scattered on each floor at work desks in various degrees of assembly.

Mitchell thudded down the staircase and surveyed the crews on each floor on his way out of the building. They huddled over double monitor stations and stood next to large 3D printers. They waved while keeping their attention on their tasks.

“I’m heading out to meet Seaborn and McMichaels,” he shouted from the staircase in near the midway point of the office structure. This was the coding station. “I should be back around 2. Jessica and Russ, will we be ready then?” He looked at the ceiling above the coding floor. Above it was the design pair, whom he had just seen perched at drawing tables with taped sketches and tablets. They hadn’t looked up as he moved downward.

“Yes,” came the response in simultaneous monotone from above.

“We’ll get that working. I have faith.” He looked across the floor at Control and Hayden, the coders, arguing at a spiked waveform projected on the tan wall. “Guys, what do I have?”

“Faith,” came the response in simultaneous monotone. They immediately returned to squabbling.

“Right. Be back soon.” He stepped off the staircase at the ground floor into the wide lobby of the project offices and dropped out of sight in one of the building elevators. 

The code team reset for a moment to catch their breath. Hayden, his height accentuated by a tight business shirt rolled to the forearms to show off his tattoos, hopped up to sit on a butcher block kitchen island used as a casual meeting table. The light from the wall projection reflected in his glasses and refined his strong facial structure. Control crossed her own tattooed arms as she turned away from the waveform projection to face the staircase wall. No business shirt for her; she wore a rotating roster of baseball shirts of indie bands and horror movies. She watched the traffic idling at the intersection beneath her through the thick glass and caught a glimpse of a delivery truck’s image of a model with a streak of bright red in her black hair.

“My hair looked better when I did that. Two years ago.” She glanced up through her now blue and black hair to regard the skyline, and she absently fiddled with her lip piercing. “I have faith that the dwarves are dragging their ass again.”

“Eric and Miles can get the work done if the work would stop changing.” The waveform danced in his glasses. “Mitchell gives them something new to cram in the phone every day, and it breaks momentum. Which is why we get something new to translate every day.”

“We should dump Miles. Get someone better.”

“Who’s gonna put in more hours than that guy? He only leaves the cave to moon over Jessica.” At her name, he threw his chin to the ceiling toward roughly the area where she was sitting above him.

“Doesn’t mean he’s working. Just that he’s stationary. He’s growing lichen down there.”

She shoved off the island and stomped up the staircase. “I’m gonna play upstairs. I’ll be back in a few.”

“I’ll yell if I have an epiphany.”

Control stopped at the design floor and leaned around the staircase pole. “Russ! You have been challenged! Defend your tribe!”

“Can’t.” Russ drew a straight line with the draft arm while looking over the top of his glasses. His thick form barely fit on the drawing table stool, and his sneakers hooked high into the top rails, shoving his knees just to the edge of the table. “We gotta show three icons and a new submenu style at the two o’clock.”

“I can.” Jessica sat upright and wide-eyed. She was the youngest of the staff. The sunlight coming through the great glass wall caught her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. 

“Have you played this game yet?” Control had no enthusiasm for the prospect.

“I can learn it quick. I always beat my brothers after a few tries.” She raised the table lamp away from her work and was now turning and half off the stool.

“I’m not a guy, Jessica. Offer rescinded.” Up she went, stomp stomp stomp.

Jessica returned to the drawing position and pulled the lamp back in place. “I know.”

“Hey, be happy. You just did her a favor. You gave her something new to grumble about.” Russ leaned over his tablet to scan reference photos. He slid his finger repeatedly over its screen to flip through the images.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“When we’re done tonight, I’ll walk you through the game. Then you can clobber her tomorrow. Sucker her in. Tell her you watched a video of someone playing it online then pretend you never played it before.”

She snorted. “Oh man, she’d throw the TV out the window.”

“The origin of a supervillain. The Ragin’ Hater. Thanks to Jessica.” She honked a laugh and shook over her drawings. “Gee, Mitchell, I don’t know why Control was swatting planes off the Empire State. Yeah, bummer. Does this mean we get another week to work?” Jessica’s forehead was on the table now.

“I can hear you.” Control’s voice came down the flue of glass and rail behind Jessica, and now they both were doubled over and shaking. “Shits.”


	12. Chapter 12

“Mister Mitchell, just what am I doing here?”

Mitchell had been in Katherine’s inpatient room for less than 20 seconds. Just long enough to make acquaintance with her and Reiner and give the room a quick look-see to confirm it was comfortable. The question surprised him. It implied she would rather be back in her Kingsport room than here in New York with more freedom than she had enjoyed in a quarter-century. That had to be fixed and now.

“Doctor, you’re here to help us save people.” Katherine didn’t move. She held his eyes with hers and breathed deep. “Come on, sit.”

He walked to the dining table, similar in size to the Kingsport fixture but free from the wall and less sterile in design. Instead of an antiseptic environment, the room looked like a small apartment with wood grains and rugs and living room furniture. Instead of overhead fluorescents, the room had corner lamps. Katherine still hadn’t spied the cameras, but she knew they had to be there and imagined a basement room with banks of monitors, watching each room.

Mitchell pulled out a chair for her, and Katherine sat. Mitchell took another. Seaborn caught Reiner’s attention to suggest they stay put.

“Doctor McMichaels, this is the floor devoted to our trial of therapy for pineal hyperactivity. Everyone on this floor, and there are seven of you, have some degree of pineal abnormality. We hope we have created something that can help them. That’s what the trial will illustrate. The staff here specializes in the documentation of research trials, and I felt very strongly about your predicament, separate from your value as a clinical patient, which is, I admit, considerable.”

“How did the others get here?”

“Some of them were discovered in hospitals with MRI surveys of patients with schizophrenics. They exhibited the same symptoms as yours. Some didn’t match the true diagnosis of disorganized or paranoid disorders. But they were given MRIs, and the pineal was noticed. It might be hereditary. It might be nutrition. If it is a result of some supplement, maybe it can be weeded out by trial and error.

“But we have our device and our apps. We think that can be an immediate aid while the mitigating factors are isolated. And if they can’t find a cure, our therapy could be a long-term accessory. But you’re a special case, doctor. Your pineal wrecks the curve. And your observations match notes we’ve found on similar research on pineal stimulation and other forms of resonators. They also match, of course, the preliminary notes for Doctor Pretorious’s experiments.”

“These people weren’t exposed to resonators before they came here?

“Not the kinds we’ve designed and seemingly nothing artificial. It raises the question if there are naturally occurring resonators or natural convergences of the right elements to create a resonation field. There’s still so much to learn.”

Katherine turned to Reiner who had leaned his shoulder on the room’s wardrobe. “Did you know?” She seemed to shrink in the chair as she asked, and her voice was surprisingly soft.

“I had no idea that we were looking at a possible trend.” Reiner straightened up off the wardrobe. “When I saw your scan results, I thought it finally cemented your version of events, but that you were a unique case. We obviously had no such scans from before your experiences with the resonator, so we had no comparison. But if these people have at least some degree of pineal development similar to yours, maybe you had a susceptible or active pineal gland before the resonator.”

“Mister Mitchell, do these people see the creatures?”

“Not like what you describe. They have an awareness of movement or presence, and their minds interpret that in mundane ways. They sense something the size of a person and seem to react to a potential threat, but they presume a human is the cause. They have no reason to consider monsters in the air.”

“But you believe me.”

“Again it fits what Pretorious observed and extrapolated. We reverse-engineered his preliminary designs and applied it to new technology. His machines unintentionally attracted them. We programmed the opposing frequencies to naturally repel them. That’s what your phone is doing now. The apps we created couldn’t use existing phones to broadcast the signal so we’ve been making our own for a while now. They’re all prototypes, but the success of this trial will give us the boost we need to launch our services onto the market.”

“Amazing. When the trial is over, I’d like to see the documentation. I don’t want to unintentionally skew them by knowing who gets the placebos and who’s the control.” Katherine was fully engaged now. Her appetite for research had withered from misuse, but it was slowly regaining its sea legs. If she could be cured to some degree, she could potentially regain some licensing.

Her recuperation built momentum, bolstered greatly by starting the letter to Bubba’s family. Madelyne, the Kingsport office manager, had spoken with the alt-weekly reporter covering Katherine’s case and traded a small, approved scoop for the family contact information. Katherine began a mental rough draft of the letter on the plane and drifted back to it in the rare quiet moments. She relished having new things to tumble in her mind now and looked forward to everything settling in around her. Then she could get traction. Then she could move forward.

“We should start that now.” Mitchell walked to the phone mounted on the wall near the lightswitch and pressed a button on the receiver. A barely audible voice came on the line. “Hi, doctor. This is Mitchell with Dr. McMichaels in 1320. Yes, we just got her settled. Would now be a good time to get her into the system and start the initial notes? Great. Thank you.” He replaced the receiver and turned to the trio, hands in pockets. The doctor and an assistant will be here soon. They can do all the vitals here in the suite. Doctor, you can kick off your shoes if you like.”

“Until I get adjusted to the room, I think I should wear them for support.” She stood up and pulled a plastic cup from the cabinet. “Less chance tripping over the carpets. Anyone else wants some water?”

Seaborn shook his head but walked to the small fridge tucked under the kitchen counter. He opened it and peeked inside. “I can make a run to fill this up during your registration, if you want. Reiner can come with me. Or do you need to stay here?”

“That’s up to Doctor McMichaels,” Reiner said. “I can always answer the attending later if she needs, but we should treat this as if she walked in the door off the street. She’s free of medication from Kingsport, so she’s as clean a slate as any other clinical subject.”

Katherine took a sip while she considered. “Mm, no, I think I’ll be OK to fly solo. Go see the city. Get a souvenir for Kelly.”

“Oh, we can all do that later this afternoon,” Mitchell pulled out his phone and swiped the screen. “I set up a meeting with my design folks at two, and we can go there after a lunch. Think of it as a celebration of a new start, and then you can meet the people who made it possible.” Katherine’s app phone stood in a custom stand on the kitchen counter, plugged into the wall, with the waveform keeping a constant rhythm. She didn’t want to test the battery life, so it would remain plugged if an outlet were available. “I’ll be downstairs talking to some of the staff during the exam.”

“You seem to have the run of the place, Mister Mitchell. Is it because you send them clinical subjects?”

“Oh, call me Andrew.” He barely looked up from the phone. “No, I get the run of the place because I built it. I know everyone who works here. I can vouch for all the people I work with.”


	13. Chapter 13

In the Fourth Eye tech cave, Eric and Miles were silently hunched at their separated workstations. The basement subsection was a dark block of server towers and support columns surrounded by gray concrete. Spot LED lamps were clipped to the black server frames and reflected softly off the burnished green floor tiles.

The server-room door opened to a long corridor running halfway down the floor. It ended at Eric’s station, where he sat with his back to the door. The corridor then turned right to the large tan wall and ran back along the perimeter of the building before turning left. There was where Miles toiled, in a pocket behind the drone of the servers. He kept clear plastic tarps on the floors halfway to his station. He repeatedly claimed this was to minimize static buildup that could potentially risk damage to the towers, but everyone else in the building believed it was so he could hear footsteps so no one could catch him sleeping or visiting websites unrelated to work. Control swore all of his browser bookmarks were porn, but no one had ever sat at his computers to check. His area had a distinctive territorial stamp that discouraged visitors by design.

Miles hated people so they couldn’t hate him first. He had no tolerance for the social expectations of interaction. Every concession of nicety was an incremental loss of sovereignty. Hygiene, attire, appearance – they meant nothing. He thought people said things or made gestures toward him solely to oblige him to respond. Then they would belittle his reactions. He gave them no reason to interact. He spoke barely over a whisper, and he didn’t make eye contact.

The only reason he was in this building was because his purposeful isolation had forged in him an astounding work ethic and an expansive knowledge of computer language. Many could make computers and servers talk. Others could make them sing. Miles made them dance. Once given a task, he did not stop until it was pristine. Every concern of precision and grace not extended to himself was instead invested into his work. The work was as close to art as he would ever get, and the satisfying denial of any chance of reproach to his product was as close as he ever got to happiness. In this regard, Miles was not his tattered shoes or his clothes weeks removed from a washing, or his splotchy facial hair and greasy complexion fueled by a corrupt diet. Miles beheld the perfect architecture and exchanges he formed, and seen from this angle, Miles was also perfect and beyond critique. He was above everyone.

Normally his impetus for work was either money to buy more powerful tools or access to those he would not yet be able to afford. He certainly didn’t spend money on clothes or meals or furnishings; his apartment was a shambles of debris. No one had set foot in it save the maintenance people checking on the room’s wiring; one of his DIY efforts required him to physically hack into the building’s power supply. The resulting conversation ended with him promising to never do that again or risk eviction. The shame of it drove him to an 11-hour effort to build a new server from whatever he had in the apartment. It burned out the anger for which he had no other outlet.

This job however had a fringe benefit no other could provide, and it gave him something close to joy. The halting progress on the Mitchell project required random exposure to frequencies that touched his pineal. After building a resonator, the staff assembled to test the phones. Eric and Miles had left the new machine running in the basement. The coworkers were given a prototype phone loaded with an app to receive the resonator signal. They switched them on simultaneously. They immediately felt it in their minds. 

The signal created short bursts. Miles felt it tingle at the top of his neck, in line with the tips of his ears and almost outside the back of his head. A pulse that started as a tremble and blossomed into a burst that replaced his blood. It buttressed his body, making him stand taller and lifting his skin from the inside, lightening his bones and limbs. It was a glory, fleeting though it was, and as this brief test broadcast ended, he was left panting. The others in the room broke into embarrassed laughter at their mutual responses, but he beheld it as a divine visitation, and one best of all that required no interplay with people. He understood what this could be: a portable pocket universe of solace and majesty.

The feeling lasted throughout the rushed gallop to the subway and on the ride to his stop and the long path to his building and up the stairs and into the door and finally when he was locked away in his own space, he masturbated repeatedly, each successive time expending the sensation from the office building until it was diminished completely and he was exhausted. It lasted much longer than his body could replenish itself, and he was left shuddering, breathless, throbbing and curled in a ball on his living room floor, his pants crammed on his shoes and his shoulders sore from bearing his weight on the cement among the fast food bags and the empty soda bottles. He was surrounded by garbage and waste at the absolute peak of elation. He had never been happier. He needed more.

He awoke the next day, bruised and raw, barely able to put that week’s underwear back on, and he traveled slowly to the office. During a feedback session that morning, he was oblivious and impatient as the others shared their residual experiences in giggles and high fives. Except for Control, of course. She insisted she would refrain from future exposure, disdaining its influence. The others tried to chisel at her resolve, but she was resolute. She said she would from here on be the control of these wavelength experiments. The others thought her smug, and Miles would have agreed had he not been focused on the prototypes sitting in the middle of the conference table on the marketing floor.

As the assembly ended, he managed to palm one and scurry back to his tech cave hole. He didn’t dare turn it on there. Eric might have felt the app’s effects too and realized what Miles was doing down there. He waited until he got it home, terrified along the way that he could be called on his own phone by someone demanding he return the prototype, but no one seemed to notice; the office was filled with copies of them for everyone to tinker with at their stations.

He got home safe, shut off the lights, and turned on the phone and the app. It hit him immediately, and he laughed, a sound not produced for years. He cupped the phone in his hands, pressed the it against his head, and felt his brain come alive. His breathing deepened, and his eyes closed, but his pupils darted inside the lids. He sat that way for hours, too fazed to sleep and too sore from the previous day to piss. He only moved to remove his clothes so they wouldn’t encumber his erection. It pulsed with his heartbeat, making small jerks in the cold air of the apartment, braced by his belly and raised knees. This was the new core of his circulatory system, a hot orange line from his groin to his brain, where deep inside, the growing pineal pressed against the thalamus and corpus callosum. He was curled as in a womb, and it was bliss.

His phone alarm broke the spell, and he slowly opened his eyes. His vision was filled with the bright light of the waveform millimeters above his eyes. He smiled with a creator’s pride to see the battery still had a quarter bar left. It was his suggestion that they use this particular power supply, convincing Mitchell and the marketing crew that the longer life would be a selling point despite the higher prices. The evening’s nirvana had been partially his making, and this art had provided something he had never conceived. He could claim this as much as anyone else. What the crew had enjoyed -- seemingly to a lesser degree than he -- was by his hands, and there was a twinge of what you and I would call camaraderie. It was a sensation he had never felt, and he shrugged it away before it could distract him from the app’s effects.

But it did make him wonder of the others’ experiences, where they may have tried the apps in their homes and how each may have nestled himself before sitting for hours and bathing in the wavelengths. Mitchell in his, no doubt, satin sheets and gray décor to match his suits and hair. Russ with his wife in a four-post bed. Miles imagined them on white pilled blankets, huddled up against the headboard, heads together and humming in unison. The others would likewise have their small ceremonies before thumbing the phone and closing their eyes. Even Jessica.

That made Miles take a deep breath. Jessica, the small doll in design, fresh from university and bright in the sunlight. Her laugh was honest, unconcerned with station or status. He had watched her during late-night pizza breaks, laughing while drinking beer in mugs she could barely lift, dabbing with a napkin at her chin. She was enthusiastic in conversations, leaning and gesturing with the broadness of a stage actress. Control remained cool with her water, rejecting even soda as a corrupting influence, and sitting back in the bar booth, distracted by her text messaging, only engaged when she could get ramped up on sports or movies. Control wouldn’t look at him.

Jessica, however, would try to bring him into the discussion and once reached across the booth table to touch his hand for emphasis, joking that he was the deciding vote of whether she was right. He voted yes immediately, and she beamed and patted his hand before turning to the others with victory and removing her small fingers from his wrist. He stared at his hand for a long time, seeing the transparent outline of where her hand sat and feeling the cold moisture from the mug handle. A small dot of water remained, and it was from her, and it was on him. And this was something she had passed physically to him. A drop of water infused by her kindness. He felt the stare of one of the marketing trio, whatever his name was, and when he chuckled when Miles returned the look. Miles quickly wiped away the water and returned to his food, chewing with clenched jaw.

What would Jessica do with her phone? Where would she activate it? Miles saw her in a long night shirt, soft pink with white jersey numbers. Ankle socks and a ponytail. A large mattress on the floor with thick blankets, and a small desk lamp lit on the floor beside it. She would sit cross legged and straight-backed on the bed, tilted her head to the side and pressing the app icon. Then she would lie on her stomach, crossing her ankles above her small bottom wearing white cotton that peeked out from the hem of the night shirt, and Miles now came so hard he shouted. He was back on his patched apartment couch, and he was dribbling onto the paper bags at his feet. He groaned with each breath fueled by his pounding heart. He propped his elbows on his bare knees and held his head. His erection remained despite the spill. This is what the app did to him. This is what Jessica did to him. What might it be like if he had both?

He chuckled and smirked. He immediately buried the notion in disgust at himself and turned it to anger at her. Like everyone else, she’d sneer at him. Laugh at him before he could even broach the idea. They had nothing in common. Except the project. But that included the effects of the app, right? She had to feel some measure of the rapture of the broadcast. She never mentioned someone in her life. She had to wonder too what it would be like to have this with someone. She worked with Russ. Russ would hint at time spent with his wife and the phone. Jessica would have notions too, wouldn’t she?

She was nice to Miles once. She lowered her shields for him. Like he was one of them. Like he was as worthy of outreach as the others. Maybe that extended to consideration of intimacy.

No. No, the voice said. His voice. Aloud, it was outside him and antagonistic. No, it said. She’s golden and clean. She bounces on her toes when she walks. Gravity affects her differently than you in your filth. Look at where you are right now. Seeping into trash in a hovel. You can’t bring anyone here, much less her. You move in a film of grime. Even your filthy breath is an intrusion into the happy world around you. They have their happiness, and you have nothing. You are nothing. You are below them all physically and socially. Even Eric barely speaks to you.

Well fuck them, he replied inside. Fuck everyone. And fuck her with her snotty smile and stupid laugh. Bitch. All of them.

The phone alarm chirped again in his pants on the floor. He shoved his legs inside the pants and crammed his feet into the shoes. He slouched to the bathroom and peed despite the pain and swished a cup of water in his mouth in his singular concession to dentifrice. He was starving. He’d buy a bagel in the subway station on the way in. He pocketed the prototype and pulled a stained green shirt from a pile in the corner. He was still yanking it around his belly and back as he walked down the apartment hallways to the aged steps.

And that was how the thought of Jessica briefly gave him his closest notion of happiness before returning him to the cushion of anger that constantly propelled him.

But hope would clear its throat before the end of the day.


	14. Chapter 14

The formal introduction to the clinic went swimmingly for Katherine. Doctor Waid was a pale, soft man with big fingers but a light touch. He joked the whole way through, making the attendant nurse roll her eyes. He had a shtick, the nurse was the straight man, and Katherine was the audience. When it was time to explain the protocol, he was clear and forthcoming. He knew Katherine had participated in such when she wore the white coat. He spoke to her as a colleague more than a patient. 

She was delighted and eager. With the phone continuing to clear her perception of random horrors, she was up for anything. Five hours before, she had awoken in her Kingsport room as she had for 27 years. Now she was in another state, another facility, and moving toward a new purpose. She intended to enjoy every half-second of it.

They sat in the living room quadrant of her room. Soft yellow light matched a brown palette of the sofa and easy chair. The rectangular rug added red tones, making the room warm and casual. She found it nicer than her long-ago apartment, and that made her wonder where she would live when this was over. Back to Arkham? Reiner suggested she wouldn't be able to walk down the street without being mobbed. Maybe Boston. Boston had always been good to her in her visits. Those thoughts were for later, because she was at the edge of a sprawl of New York City, miles of world-famous territory personally uncharted. How could she see it? That was a question for Mitchell, she decided. He seemed to have the final say for all these matters.

Reiner and Seaborn returned in the closing moments of the conversation with Waid. They had a few plastic bags of groceries, and Katherine met them in the kitchen to decide what went where, something she hadn't done in forever. So many mundane acts were personal precedents of this century. She spoke with Waid and the nurse as she tried cabinet combinations and asked Seaborn to put items in her fridge. It was a little low for her to bend comfortably. She refused the idea of lifting it on top of a counter and instead promised this would inspire her rehab exercises.

Reiner and Seaborn sat on the couch, while the other three stayed in the kitchen area for final notes. Katherine was given contact information and paper instructions and forms to sign. Waid and the nurse offered handshakes and a final bit of shtick for Katherine's benefit before leaving. They waved at Reiner and Seaborn through the doorframe, and Katherine joined them, taking the easy chair with puffed cheeks.

“I’m exhausted,” she put her head back against the chair headrest and closed her eyes.

“Big day.” Seaborn adjusted his tie and crossed his legs. He and Reiner had removed their jackets and draped them on the sofa between them in an unspoken accord as a male comfort buffer. “And it’s barely noon. You still get to see the home office and meet the crew. They can’t wait to see you.”

“What have they been told about me?” Eyes still closed, head still back.

“They know all about you and your case. But don’t worry. They know we’re looking at a misdiagnosed pineal development. They made the app that helped you get here. They want you to regain full stability and mobility. Your success is their success. They’re sitting on top of a rocket with this stuff.”

“I felt like that was me, I guess. In a single capsule. A Mercury. Aimed at space on top of a skyscraper. Then I was in orbit and alone and seeing stuff no one had seen before. Then I splashed down.”

“Is this the splashdown?” Reiner nodded to their environs.

“No, this is the ticker tape parade.”

Mitchell knocked at the door and walked in as the others rose. Reiner helped Katherine out of the deep chair and grabbed the two jackets.

“Hope it went well. Dr. Waid has a lot of confidence in your prognosis.”

“He’s perfect for this. I plan on stealing some of his material if I’m ever on that side of the clipboard again.”

“Well this could be the place for you, you know.” Katherine froze and blinked. “Why not? You’ve gone through this now as a doctor and a patient, and if the therapy helps, you’ll be perfect to walk others through the trials and maybe beyond.”

“I didn’t – I mean, maybe –“

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s get you whole first.” Mitchell put a hand high on each of her arms and squatted slightly to match her eye line. “But consider everything today through the lens of new opportunity.”

“Of all the things you’ve seen over the years, now you can see possibilities.” Seaborn put his hands on his hips with forefingers extended. Mitchell’s hands stayed in place and his head turned to Seaborn and looked over his glasses.

“With a line like that, I’m surprised she agreed to come to New York.”

“No one bats a thousand, sir.” Seaborn said softly and looked over at the kitchen table. Mitchell stood back to full height and took back his hands.

“So, I promised you all a lunch, and there’s plenty of choices between here and the clinic.” He straightened his tie and smiled at Katherine. “Any preferences?”

“I could honestly try anything.”

“Right. Hospital food. Suddenly everything looks like Thanksgiving.” He pulled out his phone and punched a few buttons. “I’ll call ahead for a table.”

“Oh, my phone. Right.” Katherine and Reiner shared a laugh as she unplugged her app device from the wall and cradle and pocketed it. “I can’t believe I would have left it.”

“That’s not the kind of trial we want to conduct.” Seaborn took his jacket from Reiner and slipped it on. Reiner did the same with his, and they headed out the door. In the brown and red hallway, she turned to Reiner as they walked.

“I guess I’ll need a purse once I have something else to carry around. Everything that would have been in my wallet is expired. Even money looks different these days.”

“Enjoy the freedom of only carrying a phone,” Mitchell said. “That’ll change soon once you’re able to move around in the city.”

“They took the elevator down to the wide lobby. Bright noon sunlight cast deep shadows away from the two sets of doors leading to the outside. Mitchell’s driver waited in the lone car parked along the entrance curb. They exited the second set of sliding doors and into the abrupt noise of the city.

“Oh. I forgot my cane.” Katherine stopped cold and turned slightly back.

“I can go get it,” Reiner said. He started back inside the lobby. Katherine held up her hand to stop him.

“No, don’t.”

“You sure? You’re moving around a lot today.” Mitchell stood at the open car door. Katherine saw the luxurious back seat and got in with a small scooch and wriggled into the soft leather. Reiner and Seaborn got on the other side.

“I’m sure. My legs feel good so far.” Mitchell closed the door for her and sat up front next to the driver. The car slid into the traffic and toward the towering, jagged skyline. Katherine looked through the car’s moon roof at the contrails floating miles above. “We’re just going to an office meeting, after all.

“Today will be a test to see how strong I am.”


	15. Chapter 15

"Everyone. This is Dr. Katherine McMicheals."

Mitchell and his crew were on the marketing floor, the most welcoming area of the office building. The front lobby was designed to have a logo seen from the elevator, and an office manager would be hired and stationed there when they officially launched. But now was all about pouring the foundations, and a significant plateau was made real when the office staff saw the older woman stand before them, free from a Massachusetts asylum thanks to the app cobbled from fringe science.

The staff of Fourth Eye and Seaborn and Reiner ringed the room's large conference table, just one floor below the top suite. This was scheduled to be Russ and Jessica’s two o'clock appointment, and they had hustled through their lunch time to churn out the interface icons and a submenu for the wavelength control. No one had known Katherine was coming.

The car pulled up to the building's front door, and the four rose from the seats comfortably full from lunch, into the building lobby, and up the elevators. Work continued uninterrupted until people noticed the number of footsteps moving up the spiral staircase. The wide lobby was unoccupied, but the code duo -- Hayden and Control -- in the second floor heard the fuss on the steps and looked up to stop working. They didn't know who was coming in with Mitchell and Seaborn. Mitchell called them upstairs and told Control to go fetch the guys in the tech dungeon. She waited for the four to move up the staircase before she walked down. Jessica and Russ were already on the marketing floor with their sketches, prints, and polished designs in the table laptop ready to be projected on the tan sidewall.

Also here were Zelda and Justin, the other marketing people, fresh from scouting new tech and sales angles in a downtown conference. They skewed the crew's age closer to that of Mitchell and Seaborn and presented the more formal fashions. Zelda was a tall brunette with pencil skirt and high heels. When she wasn't talking, she was almost perfectly still to take in all around her. Justin was the opposite, constantly moving, almost dancing when his fidgets fell into alignment. He sported the latest haircut of his favorite rapper and expensive lace-less sneakers with his three-piece suit. They were the public faces of the company, but they as yet had very little to present. They huddled with Mitchell to constantly tweak the phone and app to match products already in the market. This made them very unpopular with the employees who worked on the lower floors, and only Mitchell could keep the peace.

He gave Katherine and Reiner the chairs on the far end of the conference table, which had more than enough seats for all nine of his employees, and he alone talked to the pair while everyone waited for Eric, Miles, and Control. Seaborn convened with Zelda and Justin to take in their discoveries. Jessica and Russ looked at each other with confusion. The meeting was now much larger than they were led to believe. Hayden sat and checked his social platforms on his phone.

When the three came up the stairs, Control was obviously moving to avoid Miles, who brought up the far rear. When they took chairs, she moved to the opposite end of the table. Eric had seen his share of disheveled IT people in his classes and previous employment; Miles was distinct but not wildly aberrant. Also, Eric's constant sinus problems blocked the odor from his shopmate. He was told privately numerous times that he should be grateful.

Once Control sat, Seaborn excused himself from the marketing talk and reached inside his shoulder bag. He handed her a small bundle in brown butcher paper.

"You asked me to bring you something back." Her face opened with glee and quickly unwrapped the package.

"Ooooooooh. It's beautiful. It's amazing. Thank you." The others craned to see what sorcery had done this to Control. She bounced in her chair and held up the object: a black fabric wallet with a picture of the Bride of Frankenstein.

"There's a store in Salem called Count Orlock's Nightmare Factory, and I knew that was the place for you."

"I love it. I love it. Come here." Seaborn thought she was going to whisper something, but when he bent down close to her, she kissed him on the cheek. She then quickly wiped the black lipstick smudge off his face. "Oops. Got you there."

The room relaxed at this, and Control leaned to Russ sitting next to her to show it off. Russ delighted in the novelty.

"That's pretty awesome."

"Yeah it is."

The others broke into small groups of laughter. Miles sat quiet and stared at Control. Stared at her happiness. It was such a stupid thing, but it melted even her to the point that she kissed Seaborn. Is that all it takes, Miles thought. He scratched the back of his head, giving him a reason to turn and catch a glimpse of Jessica. What might make her react that way? 

Mitchell stood and welcomed everyone, clapping his hands once to set an energy level for the meeting. The others nodded once or responded with simple hellos. There was involuntary swiveling in the chairs and many clunk-clunks of phones dropped to the tabletop for notes. There was no indication of a meeting out of the norm. Control crumpled the wrapping and tossed it onto a counter behind her. The wallet stayed on the table.

Then Mitchell announced their guest, and the room stopped. The crew looked at Katherine and each other. Seaborn and Mitchell exchanged a look, understanding this was the payoff for the months of daily toil in abstractions and equations and projections. The folks who focused on tiny screens and styli for hours each day were finally introduced to the larger picture. The human element. Here among them sat proof, and she waved hello with wiggling fingers.

"Hi." She nudged her chair back and stood. Reiner steadied her chair for her. "I can't express the kind of change you're made possible for me, and I want to thank all of you, each of you, for making this new therapy possible." Jessica and Russ gave each other a thumbs up. Hayden and Control looked at each other across the table with scrunched eyebrows. Reiner stood as well.

"And I'm Doctor Reiner. I'm Dr. McMichaels's evaluator. I was the facility representative Mister Seaborn approached with the app and phone. To say that this improvement was dramatic is an understatement. This has the potential to help a large number of people currently suffering through misdiagnosis. This can alter their lives the way it's altered ours, as patient and doctor. You should all be very proud of what you've done here."

Mitchell clapped, and the crew joined in to congratulate Katherine. She and Reiner sat back down with repeated thank-yous. Seaborn walked to her for a handshake, and Katherine turned it into a neck hug.

"Dang, Seaborn," Justin said. "You're working the room."

"I have the notes from the initial use of the app and subsequent reports from Doctor Reiner," Mitchell said. "I'll email the pertinent information to you all for reference, and I hope we can use this as initiative to keep moving forward. We're all pushing hard on this, and I know we've thrown you some curveballs." Snickers and glances were exchanged.

"But this is the very thing I had in mind when I started this venture, and you're making it happen. You did this. And I wanted you all here today to see what we're doing." He started clapping again, and the others followed. He sat down, flattening his tie with a palm.

"Dr. McMichaels is currently at the clinic for the trials, and I expect we'll have her here often for follow-up questions and any suggestions she can give us as an expert in her field. But I wanted to give you chance, doctor, to ask us any questions you might have."

"Well, yes,” she said. “I have been wondering: How did this start? How did you begin a project designed to help suspected schizophrenics?"

The room pressure raised noticeably, and the crew looked at each other. Mitchell cleared his throat to settle them.

"You know, this will be a great time for the marketing division to strut their stuff," he said. "Zelda, Kevin, Justin. This is a perfect scenario for you. Where did Fourth Eye come from and what do we want to do?"

The three gestured to each other, and Zelda volunteered to start.

"Hi, Dr. McMichaels, I’m Zelda, lead marketing specialist for Fourth Eye. We’re thrilled you’re here.”

“Lead?” Justin asked.

“When you volunteer, you get be the lead. Doctor, have you ever heard of a dream machine?"

Katherine shook her head.

"Think of it as a therapeutic kaleidoscope. It was originally designed in the 1950s by some of those who influenced the Beats and were likewise inspired by them. The Beats -- Kerouac, Ginsburg, Burroughs especially -- sought to expand the perception of the mind, to actually see without eyes, using parts of the mind long dormant. They didn't invent the idea, clearly. It's primordial. We've sought to alter the brain as long as we've been around." Zelda circled the table using a pen like a baton to punctuate specific words.

"Shamans thought the expansion of perception was as fundamental to the education of the mind as reading. But instead of bones or runes or letters, they wanted to read purer forms of communication. Light and energy, for instance. Wifi for the mind. Your phone or tablet transmits or receives signals that exist in bandwidths we can't see, but the information comes onto the screen as words and images and sound. Just like radio. Just like TV. Just like smartphones.

"We live in a world where this happens every second, but in each instance, we use a device to receive and translate the information so we can perceive it with our eyes and ears. And they are only outlets that send signals to nerves that tell our brain what's around us. The ears and eyes are limited to certain bands of light and decibels. Their physical restrictions actually hamper awareness of everything around us. What if we could simplify that process? Remove the phone and the eye and the cochlear nerve and directly input to the brain?

“Let's think simple and pure. Here’s the dream machine: Take a light bulb and hang it over a record player. Cut out holes in a bare toilet paper roll and put it in the center of the record player. Position the bulb inside the roll and turn on the player. Close your eyes and stare at the lights coming through the holes. That's a dream machine.

“It creates a hypnogogic state, that zone between waking and sleeping, and it allows the brain to interpret light impulses and energy around us. It alters our alpha waves and jumpstarts the REM stage of dreaming. Waking visions, you could say. It agitates the optic nerve behind the eyelid, and the removal of just one step of seeing -- the pupil -- stimulates the brain to greater perception beyond what the pupil can accept.

"Now what if we eliminate the optic nerve? The brain's awareness would magnify. The information it recognized could be tenfold. Waves of the light spectrum. Sounds now only known to animals. What might we learn then? The brain actually has melanopsin photoreceptor cells inside it. They don't use our eyes, but they see and they affect us on a base level, like the circadian rhythms. They are active and responsive, and we use them every day. And I bet you, Doctor McMichaels, know where they are."

"The pineal gland,” Katherine said. “Modern research bears out the theories of Descartes, Spinoza, and eastern notions of the third eye. We all have it. It's the pineal. It also affects the production of melatonin and hormones. It's thought to be the hub of the Hindu chakras and a thermostat of life energy."

"You're ahead of the sales pitch, doctor." Zelda smiled. "Now let's talk about William Reich. He postulated in the '30s the existence of an energy called orgone. There were other theories about benign universal energies that humans could harness. Mesmer called it animal magnetism. Reichenbach said it was Odic force. Reich thought many of the body's ailments were caused by an inability to process orgone."

"Now you're getting close to Freud's theories."

"Exactly. Mitchell, I could make her a salesperson in a week. Freud thought the libido was twisted by internal restrictions which caused most psychological distress. We did it to ourselves, he argued. Reich disagreed, saying external impediments on the libido caused our neuroses. He thought that if you could remove those impediments, you could find mental and emotional stability. And he thought the libido was the body's expression of the orgone all around us.

“His theories led to the creation of orgone boxes or accumulators. These are small cabinets that work like solar panels for orgone, and sitting in them would flood the body with healthy stimulation. Burroughs claimed they helped him fight his heroin addiction. Even suggested it would fight cancer. He and others marveled at what the mind saw while inside even as others claimed they were hallucinations. Some of Reich's followers focused on orgone as a sexual stimulant and claimed renewed virility.

"Now let's recap: direct brain input, manipulation of the pineal gland, dream machines, and orgone accumulators. The uploading of information to the mind, the development of perception arrays inherent in us all, the expansion of what we see and hear. Waking dreams that cleanse the mind and provide confidence and stability. That's what we're talking about. That's what we can do with this." She held up one of the phone prototypes. It had a slightly different contour than Katherine's and looked a bit larger.

"We call it Fourth Eye. We created a package of apps embedded in the proprietary phone system. It works like any other smart phone. Makes calls, takes video and pictures, watches video, and has access to all the social platforms. But only Fourth Eye has the hardware to broadcast our apps at the right frequencies. There are timers to prevent oversaturation or motor diminishment. One app can create a wavelength that soothes; another can stimulate. It can help you sleep or wake up. It can alter hormone distribution for confidence. Or serenity. Or vitality. It can also give you a safe delirium with no chemical or physical intrusion, what our programmer Control calls a 'dry high.' "

"And this, doctors," Seaborn added, "is what Pretorious and Tillinghast called a resonator. We shrank it, stabilized it, and made it ready for market."

Katherine shifted slightly in her seat. Reiner gave her a quick glance to make sure she was rattled. She put her hands under her chin and elbows on the table.

"But the resonator was extremely dangerous. How can that be sold or mass produced?"

"From what we can tell, one of them ignored safety protocols. You said in our interview that Tillinghast had to adjust the resonator to a simple on/off switch at the power levels Pretorious set before he was killed."

"By a flying monster." Control spoke flatly and stared at Katherine. Katherine shot a look at her wallet.

"Yes, something that came through the vibrations.” Katherine didn’t notice the edge in her voice. Reiner did though. “Something made corporeal by the machines, made them capable of interacting with us. They seemed agitated by the machine. The resonator was a dangerous instrument that put us in the middle of a bestiary. Three people died directly because of it. And you want to sell it at Circuit City?"

Miles snorted without looking at her. "They're not even around anymore."

"Wherever. I've been stuck in a room for 25 years. Because of that thing. Because of one resonator. How many are you making?”

"But, doctor," Seaborn knelt next to her so as not to hover. She now looked down at him. He pointed to her phone. "It also got you out of that room. What they built was misused. They were reckless." He pulled out his own from his jacket pocket. "These machines are built to be much weaker. They have ... what's the word?" he looked to the table.

"Dampeners," said Hayden, Control, and Eric simultaneously.

"Yeah. We talked about this at the interview, doctor. They went too far. They showed us how far is too far. We know to pull back, and these are not going to go as far as their machine. We prevent that."

"The dampeners are controlled here in our server farm in the basement," Hayden said. He removed his glasses and cleaned them. "It's not up to the individual user. The phones don't even create the vibrations, they only transmit them from here. We run a number of them on specific wavelengths, and the app allows users to choose the frequency like a radio tuner, and the phones broadcast the channel they choose."

"How many resonators are you running here?"

"Currently five, with plans to expand to a dozen before rollout."

"A dozen ..."

"Maybe the problem is the terminology." Seaborn rose and walked behind the table opposite Katherine. "They called it a resonator. That was their word. It's tainted. We call our system Fourth Eye. Let's go with that. What we're making can help people. You're proof of that. You can attest to its effectiveness."

"Only for affecting the creatures." She took out her phone and held it up to the room. "Is that why you built this system?"

"Actually we wanted streaming Viagra." Mitchell shrugged and chuckled. “If we tweak the pineal, it gooses the sex drive. The first take-home tests for the phone proved that worked."

Some of the crew laughed. Katherine said nothing.

"We could go with that, make the Fourth Eye a one-trick pony," he said. "Or we could investigate the full range of what this technology could do and make the phone indispensable from the start. That's the plan. We can help people in a variety of ways."

"Can I see the machines? Downstairs, you said?"

Mitchell looked to Eric, the titular head of the tech dungeon, and flipped open his hand to ask the question silently.

"Sure," Eric said. "I can give you the tour. Whenever."

"How about now? Doctor?"

"Yes, please." She stood up slowly. "Oof. I don’t know if I can tackle the stairs so soon. This floor wouldn't have an elevator to get to the basement by chance?"

"Yep, we can use the service elevator to go to the servers." Mitchell nodded in its direction as he stood. "Eric. Miles. Let's show Dr. McMichaels what we've made."

"I'll stay up here," Reiner said. "I'd like to talk to the staff some more. Is that OK?"

"Sure," she said over her shoulder as she followed Mitchell. "I'll be fine." 

Mitchell pinged the down button, and the four stepped inside. 

"I'm just going down into a room full of active resonators," she said. 

The doors closed, Katherine closed her eyes, and the elevator sank below.


	16. Chapter 16

Almost as soon as the service elevator doors closed, Katherine wished Miles hadn’t come along. Even in the larger carriage of the service elevator, the smell was overpowering, especially given her decades in an antiseptic environment. He tucked himself into the corner of the box, and Eric seemed to have gallantly stood between them to act as a buffer. Katherine turned once to verify the source of the odor, and Eric met her look with an apologetic raise of the eyebrow. Mitchell coughed once in protest and moved closer to the doors. Miles noticed none of this. He was eyes down, mind bent on Jessica and any gesture he could make for her. He leaned against the quilted liner that protected the elevator walls. The floor was a thick rubber mat with traction knobs, and he toed one of them in his reverie.

The elevator opened into a cold, concrete corridor with signs identifying the basement and pointing to the direction of the stairs and fire extinguisher. Mitchell led Katherine to the right past a series of doors on the same side of the hall as the elevator. They turned right again and down the length of the building to a set of double doors near the middle of the hallway. It was labeled “Fourth Eye Tech” in a simple-sans serif font on letter-size paper in a thin black frame.

“We spent all our money for what’s inside,” Mitchell said. He slid a card in a reader on the right-hand side of the doors and pushed three buttons on the keypad. The right side of the door opened with a small bang and slowly swung inside. The room was darker than the hallway. Yellow caution tape on the floor in front of the server towers caught the light from small LED spotlights near the low ceiling. The tower fans’ drone echoed in the room. Small red fire suppression tanks hung from the ceiling; they held a powder-gel mixture designed to kill a fire without ruining the electronics inside the room.

The doors lead straight to Eric’s work area, a raised table with metal frames and stands. One side had three drawers, and his chair was a tall, swiveling backed seat. Three monitors displayed screensaver animations, and the station was lit with an LED bar set under the cabinets over the desk. There was also a lit magnifying lamp on a spring arm. Small shelves held tools and wire bundles and screws. The lower shelves held two tablets.

“Here, let me show you how we got started.” Eric held the chair and her hand as she sat. This made her slightly taller than the men. She kept her hands on her knees to avoid bumping anything, and Eric grabbed a stylus to run a tablet to the right of the keyboard. Touching the tablet awoke one of the monitors, and he flew through a number of folders before finding one named “Miskatonic.” He tapped an icon to open a video of a man speaking, and Katherine gasped.

“This is Crawford Tillinghast, and I’m assisting Dr. Pretorious on the resonator project.” He looked straight at the camera before gesturing behind his back. There stood the machine Katherine had seen in the attic of the house. About six feet tall, it was a fat metal cylinder capped by a glass globe atop a smaller cylinder. The top half of the larger cylinder featured vertical boxes with large diodes. The base of the smaller cylinder was covered in triangular boxes with dials, knobs, and switches. The perimeter of the body was ringed with round housings for tall metal forks stretching above the globe. It was in a small room with a thick glass partition inside one wall. The perimeter of the room was piled in thick electrical wiring leading from the resonator to power generators.

Crawford looked slightly younger then Katherine remembered, and he wore a ringer t-shirt bearing the Miskatonic seal. He was small and nervous, correcting himself often as he spoke in technical jargon with flat delivery and quick looks to the camera. His flat, black hair shook when he spoke. Eric tapped the tablet and the video sped up. Mitchell stood closer behind Eric to see. Miles was on the other side of Katherine, leaning on a server tower frame.

“This is their log from the Miskatonic labs.” The video cut off, and he started another from the other side of the glass partition. The camera was set near the glass, and Crawford turned to speak to it. The room was a solid bank of computer screens and dials with two keyboards on sliding drawers. He continued speaking before turning the camera to face the resonator in the next room. The sound of quick typing was replaced by a sharp, metallic crescendo that leveled into a high whine. The resonator room filled with pink light, and the globe glowed blue and purple. The machine shook slightly, and the glass wavered. The machine quickly powered down, and the pink glow was replaced with the dead fluorescent shine. Crawford turned the camera back to him, and he was smiling.

“That’s all we can muster as of now, but it’s a good start. Small moves.” He reached behind the camera, and the video ended.

“There are tons of these.” Eric opened more folders on the monitor.

Katherine realized she was breathing too fast and calmed herself. 

“That’s exactly the machine I saw. It even sounded the same.”

“Well, that was probably a few levels louder when you saw it.” If Eric noticed her quick distress, he made no show of it. “This was all preliminary development. It wasn’t long after these that university files ended, when they took the machine to Pretorious’s house. Apparently the lab administrators thought it was getting too dangerous to continue, and Pretorious disagreed.” He opened a subfolder. “Oh, here he is.”

A new video opened to Edward Pretorious and a young woman to his left. Behind them was the machine. His sharp eyes seemed to look through the camera at Katherine. She leaned back from the monitor.

“… and this is my assistant, Lisa. Lisa say hello.” His hands rested on his hips. He looked right at the camera and smiled wide. An older man, his hair sat high on his scalp, and his eyes were wide with intent.

“Hi.” Lisa smiled and half-laughed with the greeting and adjusted her safety glasses. Her brown hair was pulled back, and she wore a white jacket behind the clipboard she clutched to her chest.

“The machine is progressing as predicted, and we have noted elevated responses commensurate with increased frequencies. Lisa, especially.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and hugged her tight. Lisa giggled. “We’re currently at 13,000 megahertz, and we’re hoping to reach 15,000 by month’s end, if the lab resources can keep up with us. Crawford assures us we have the materials needed to reach that and more, and I’m sure we’ll have frequencies of 20,000 before the end of the year. That’s where the real fun begins.” He chuckled and glanced down at Lisa who was looking at her clipboard. The image froze as Eric clicked the stylus.

“We don’t have much information on her. She made some complaints against him, and the physics lab seems to have drummed her out. She transferred to Berkley and wouldn’t talk to us. She didn’t even talk to the media after the Arkham Slau – um … “

“It’s OK.” Katherine continued staring at the image of Pretorious, glancing down and to his left. His smile and the camera angle gave his teeth a feral appearance. Katherine looked at the girl crammed next to him, oblivious to his look. Or maybe fully aware. Katherine wondered where she was now and what she endured. She remembered the fetish room in the house and the violent videotape Bubba found. She closed her eyes. This girl was younger than Wilma back in Kingsport. 

Eric opened another folder with schematics and model renderings. “So we were able to take the blueprints and dummy up our own machine. But, of course, it’s only the prototype with the smaller bandwidth capability.” He used the stylus to rotate and zoom into the machine model. “It helped us get started.”

“You made one?” That pulled her out of her thoughts.

“Yeah, we’ve got it around the corner near the back of the room. It’s not hooked up. Like I said, it’s a weaker version. It would have to be plugged into a massive power system to work they way they had in mind.” Eric closed the resonator model folder and opened another.” But it’s mid-’80s technology. It’s our old car in the garage.”

The folder expanded to a montage of close-up videos of college-age people in various expressions of happiness. The monitor filled with black-and-white video of them from the chest up, sitting against a blank white background. Some were merely grinning. Some were nearing ecstasy. A few rubbed their foreheads and winced. 

“So these are the test subjects. Crawford and Pretorious got student volunteers to sit in the room with the resonator without telling them what it did, and they took video of their reactions. This proved their machine as working as designed -- as a pineal stimulator. As you can tell, it hit people differently even when they receive the same level of exposure. We had to take that variance into account when we developed our app. Some very sensitive folks could get hooked.” Miles snorted and turfed the floor. Eric turned to him.

“Miles has some other files in his nook, if you want to see.”

“Um, I need to clean it up first. I got things everywhere, and it’s a mess.” He didn’t make eye contact with anyone as he spoke.

“Yeah, OK.” Eric wasn’t surprised. “But come over here, and we can show you what we are working with.” The four moved down the small alley of server towers to the right and then left so they stood between a stout cabinet and the wall of the building. Eric grabbed the handles and pulled both doors open and out. “Here they are. Now, keep in mind, we’ll be in the field for a moment.”

In the cabinet were three shelves holding five rectangular frames, shaped like wide Us, and the top of each mini tower was a large purple coil. The front of the frames had LED displays with varying waveforms and number sequence. Wires ran out toward the side of the tower and back behind it. The frames vibrated slightly and hummed in a deep register. The cabinet was ice cold.

“We keep the temperature regulated, and each resonator can be set to a wide array of frequencies. They run flat-out all the time, and we can modulate them through the servers. We have a few back-ups for regular maintenance, but they’re not hooked up.”

Katherine took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She felt a twinge in the back of her head and warmth behind her ears. She swallowed hard and opened her eyes. She stepped closer to the cabinet and slowly raised her hand toward one. She looked to Eric and Mitchell, and they gave silent approval. They didn’t seem as affected. Miles’s default expression gave nothing away; he was leaning against the wall with his hands behind his back.

Katherine reached toward the resonator closest to her. She paused for a second before touching it with her finger tips. The vibration flowed up her forearm, and she thought she could hear the machine more distinctly now. It was very warm, almost body temperature and seemed hotter in the surrounding freezing air. She slid her fingers down the side of the frame, feeling tiny seams in the molding. There was a slight air circulation around them, but none of the pink light emitted by the Pretorious machine. She felt an electric tinge in the nerve under her arm and up her shoulder. She breathed deep and pulled back her hand to her chest and threw a smile at Eric.

“Thank you.”

“They pack a wallop.” Eric closed the cabinet and stood between them and the rest of the aisle leading to Miles’s station, hidden around another corner. “And that’s it. We make the servers run the resonators and channel the frequencies through the apps. Control and Hayden make the code interface based on what Jessica and Russ design, and the other three sell the phones to retail outlets and hopefully hospitals. We figure that’s where the real money is. “

“That’s the hope,” Mitchell said. “Are you satisfied, Doctor McMichaels? Do we seem to know what we’re doing?”

“It certainly seems so.” She held the wrist of the hand that touched the machine. “I guess I expected to see a bank of the Pretorious machines.”

“Well, that would be spooky.” Mitchell smiled. “It presented a much more intense experience, but it clearly proved too dangerous to build our business on.” He directed her back to the subsection door, and Eric followed. “You jack that thing into our system, and things would get very bad, based on what you told Kevin. That kind of risk isn’t worth it.”

They opened up the doors to the basement corridor and headed toward the elevators. Mitchell turned to Eric.

“Is it just us three heading back up?”

“Probably.” Eric looked back at the server room doors. “He’d rather get back to work anyway.”

“Whatever.” He opened the elevators and let Katherine step in first. “What he lacks in charm, he makes up for in productivity.”

“I know the type.” Katherine gave a quick smile and rested against the quilted wall of the service elevator.

Miles hadn’t moved. He stared at the black, closed cabinet humming amid the server towers. He thought about Katherine’s reaction to the small resonator and remembered what Eric had said about the Pretorious machine. He lightly bounced off the wall repeatedly, his shoulders thudding hard as the idea congealed. He lifted his head and rested it against the wall as he bobbed back and forth, his ankles crossed. He thought of Lisa the assistant and her fugitive giggle. He smiled at the memory.

He wanted to see Jessica laugh like that too.


	17. Chapter 17

Mitchell and Katherine met Reiner on the marketing floor of the Fourth Eye offices. The crew had broken up to their individual floors, except Jessica and Russ, who stepped out to grab food at a Central Park café. Mitchell escorted them back to the main elevator and into the building lobby while he waited for his car to come back around.

“I can’t thank you enough for coming by, doctors.” Mitchell and Reiner stood next to the chair Katherine claimed in the lobby. She grew more weary by the hour. Her mind returned to the visit to the basement. “This really was the spur the gang needed to keep on track.”

“And we can’t thank you enough for making it possible that we could come to New York,” Reiner shook his hand then pocketed both hands, flaring his jacket hem behind him. “I’ll need to get back home tonight.”

“Hey, next time, let me know when you’re coming into town. I can get you accommodations at the clinic or a hotel. I know people.”

“I may do that. I suspect Dr. McMichaels will be asleep before I get to the airport.”

“Mm.” She cleared away the fog a bit. “Probably. It’s been a big day. That bed is going to feel very nice.”

“The cafeteria kitchen is open 24 hours for the third shift. Anytime you get hungry, buzz the hall nurse, and she can grab you a meal.”

“Thank you, Andrew.” She stiffly stood up, even with help from Reiner, and took the few steps to Mitchell. She held out her arms, and he met the hug halfway. “Thank you for everything.”

“It’s great to see you out in the world again. I’m glad we could help you.” He broke the hug upon seeing the car pull up to the sidewalk, and he walked them to the curb. He held the door open for them, said goodbyes with promises to contact each very soon, and watched the car pull through the intersection and around the corner of the park. He gave a look up at the sky before wheeling on his heels and back up to the offices abuzz with renewed energy.


	18. Chapter 18

After Mitchell’s car pulled away from the Amfortas Clinic, Reiner eased Katherine through the lobby and up the elevator. As in the service elevator, she leaned against the wall until the doors opened on her floor. They said hello to a nurse waiting to step inside. Small talk was exchanged, and the nurse promised to stop by the room later to make sure Katherine was settled. She practically shuffled to her room and threw the room key on the kitchenette counter when she walked inside. She removed the Fourth Eye phone from her pocket and into its charging cradle on the counter.

Reiner promised to call in the morning to see how she was doing and assured her he would consult with Doctor Waid whenever he asked. Katherine again thanked him, hugged him goodbye, and wished him a safe return to Kingsport. Reiner closed the door behind him, and Katherine turned down the lights in the kitchen, leaving the suite in the soft yellow glow of the floor lamps. She leaned on the arm of the easy chair and removed her sneakers. They were helpful, but much heavier than the slippers she wore for years.

She reached over to the alarm clock between the easy chair and the small bed along the wall and pushed a button. The radio began playing classical music. Katherine inhaled herself to straighter posture, regarded the radio, and pushed the “scan” button. The first two stations were talk, but the third was an ‘80s station. She smiled, looked at the ceiling, and slightly bopped her head a few times. The lyrics slowly came back to her. She turned up the volume and hummed her way to the bathroom, where she drew a hot bath. She stepped into the bath and stretched fully with her head back against the rim.

She had taken advantage of everyone’s awareness of her reconstructed knees. It was a convenient excuse to break away from the tour and return to her clinic suite. But the truth was that she was nowhere near as tired as she was aroused. The resonator had jumpstarted her pineal gland. The app repelled the creatures from her perception. It did nothing to baffle her pineal, and the resonator had bolstered it. Normally an annoyance, her libido was now a welcome distraction from the blur of the day. She had rarely rewarded herself by indulging; her hyper-prim discipline staved off behaviors which reinforced the faulty diagnoses and drug regimens. But she was away from those doctors and the facility and the suspicious looks of the new orderlies. It was all behind her now, and she relaxed enough to luxuriate. She could think of no reason to refuse.

She closed her eyes and rested her hands on her hip bones. Her breath deepened, and she curled and flexed her toes, rubbing the back of her head against the round rim of the clawfoot tub. She hummed along with the fading chorus floating from the radio. Then the tune changed, and Katherine smiled wide. A march beat led to sharp, layered guitars by a flat bassline. A scratchy male voice creaked into the verse with a slight suggestion of menace. The music was young and reckless. It reminded her of breaks from graduate school and brief escapes to the New England coastline with boys.

“Oh, I love this song,” she sighed as she stretched wide her fingers.


	19. Chapter 19

Mitchell stood in the marketing room, listening to the rustling of work in the floors below him channel up through the flue. Russ and Jessica’s designs for the icons and submenu went over well despite the obligatory vague feedback from Zelda (“Could it be more fun but still formal?” Russ barely swallowed a retort.).

The animated voices of Control and Hayden suggested they were circling a solution to the new coding dilemma: another last-minute request from Zelda and Justin sent them stomping to their stations. Eric followed them down to act as referee and brainstorm adjudicator. Of all the people in the office, he was the only one they would tolerate for suggestions. He knew just enough to be helpful, and he never sequestered responsibilities between hardware and software. He wanted to find answers and nurture any solid idea. Mitchell thought he might make a fine project manager if the company expanded. Miles had never come back up from the tech dungeon.

Seaborn hopped up the staircase from a coffee trip to the building lobby. He held two pastel blue cups with black lids and offered Mitchell one of them.

“The coffee lady says our tab is nearing the national debt. I think she’s understating it.” Seaborn leaned on the conference table, sipped quickly, and watched runners in the park floors below.

“Maybe we should make a caffeine app. A wavelength that inhibits adenosine processing in the brain.” Mitchell stood nearer to the glass wall, watching the traffic of birds and cars. The sun set behind the park, blasting the office with an orange light. The skyline was a flat black contour salted with window lights. The park lamps woke up. “I’m sure the code guys wouldn’t mind if we tossed them one more program to make by tomorrow.”

“You know Control keeps baseball equipment upstairs for pick-up games in the park. She swings like a designated hitter.” Sip. “So, yeah, Justin can tap her shoulder about that.”

“How did McMichaels seem today?”

“She gave me her best behavior in our first meeting, and I turned on the app almost immediately. I only saw facility video of her during her original treatment, and they doped her up bad. But what we saw today and what I saw last week were pretty distinct. She seems more relaxed but energized at the same time. I don’t know if that’s from the change in location or the simple fact of someone believing her.”

“Does Waid think she’ll be able to cycle off the app? That wavelength has its own resonator. Zelda and Justin think we need to open it up for a larger audience.”

“He’s hopeful. She asked if she can get a phone that projects the band by itself.” Seaborn put the cup on the table behind him and crossed his hands down the length of his arms in front of him.

“No, the phones aren’t strong enough by themselves. And it’s safer to have the phones dependent on the resonators here. She can’t have her own channel indefinitely.”

“Well, if the clinic therapy works and other hospitals pick up the phones, we’ll have enough people using it to justify that frequency. That’s the plan, right?”

“Yeah, and when she’s through with the trial, she’ll be our best spokesman. Cured, reformed, and back in the world.” Mitchell threw his empty up into the trashcan near the conference table. “I guess you actually can buy that kind of publicity.”

“Soon, boss. We’re making progress. Look at the crew. They’re busy bees. We’ll be hopping into the market before you know it. McMichaels can come back tomorrow, and we can start the testimonial videos for the website. Jessica can upload them.”

“Yeah, just so long as there aren’t any setbacks.”

“We’re rolling. Come on. Don’t fall into that mood. This is just the comedown after a big day.” Seaborn picked up his cup and carried it to the trash can. “Let’s call it a day, and let everyone gear down on their own.” He pulled out his phone and swiped it a few times with his thumb. “I got a message from … ”

“Go ahead.” Mitchell turned away from the glass and toward the staircase. “Go on. We should close up shop. Give everyone a chance to let new ideas percolate. I’ll let them know.”

Seaborn remained in place, reading the phone display. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.” It was a distracted monotone. His thumb skittered over the screen keyboard as he slowly turned and took small steps toward the stairs. He soon disappeared down the steps, never looking up from the phone.

The clatter of closing laptops and rolling office chairs came from the floors below, and plans were made for dinners. Lamps were turned off, and the staircase echoed with footsteps headed to the building elevator. Conversations rang off the walls of the open lobby. The elevator bell dinged. Russ used his phone to call his wife. The sound of Control and Hayden’s animated bickering over code slipped down the elevator shaft into silence, and the dark office hummed the neutral murmur of electronic devices. Small dots of light flickered in the dying light of the day.

In the server room, back in the far corner of the building, behind heavy and dark doors, was Miles, alone and curled over his work station covered in boxes sporting wires and bolts. Eric called to say the office was closing. Miles assured him he would close up any minute.

He lied. He had work to do.


	20. Chapter 20

Jessica entered the office lobby the next morning with her regular giant coffee and a white bag crammed with croissants from a corner bakery. She always bought four – two for her, two for Russ. The bakery was between her train stop and the office. It was a favorite locale before she got the job with Fourth Eye. She talked often with the older couple who ran the bakery; there was much to-do made when she told them about her new gig. Every once in a while the husband would give Jessica a free cookie to eat on her lunch break.

“Everyone deserves a cookie at least once a week,” he said over her laughing protests. “This makes the world a better place, you know.” He would wrap the cookie in yellow wax paper and put it in her croissant bag. “Here, enjoy. You work hard.” Jessica would take it with a humbled smile and place an extra large tip in the counter jar on her way out the door. This was much a part of her routine as rolling off of the mattress that lay on the floor every morning.

She was the first to arrive at the office as always. She maintained an early-morning schedule throughout college, waking up before dawn to use her apartment building’s gym for the treadmill or elliptical while listening to her headphones. Then she ate a small breakfast to get her across town on her train commute. Sometimes she ate toast in the shower. She was a pro at shampooing with one hand, even with her long hair. Her sophomore-year roommate thought it was the funniest thing she ever saw. A discrete video of Jessica washing her hair with both hands and half a piece of toast in her mouth made her a short-lived campus celebrity. She laughed it off. She had t-shirts made with the words “I get toasted in the shower” and sold them for a charity fund drive.

When she arrived at the office, she checked the company voicemail and started the larger machines – the multi-use 2D printer, the AutoCAD printer, the 3D printer Hayden borrowed from Eric. She turned on the office lights as she ascended to the top floors, and a new addition to the routine, she cranked up the game system to hone her skills before challenging Control. She would do this until her phone alerted her that it was five minutes before Russ arrived, and she would go to the design floor and arrange her work in order of priority.

Russ found the croissant bag as usual on a paper towel at the tall light table. He got first pick, and he usually took the plain croissant (no cream cheese; he was watching his weight) with his coffee from the building café in the main lobby. Jessica was at her monitor station, playing with color options for phone cases. She seemed fidgety.

“They give you extra espresso this morning?”

“I’m starting to think so. I’m even sweating a little.” She pulled up the sleeves of her striped Oxford.

“You do have the desk closest to the window. We could switch.”

“If you sat over here in the sunlight, you’d sleep like a cat.”

“Exactly.” He steepled his fingers and cackled while twirling his office chair. Jessica laughed hard enough to scrunch up in her chair. Control and Hayden yelled hello from the floor below as they arrived. Hayden came into view taking the stairs two at a time. Wide shouldered and trim, he cut a strong form in close-fitting business shirt and khakis. Jessica thought he looked especially handsome today with that shade of burnt umber tie complementing his deep skin tone. He was, what, five years older than her? Four? Hm.

“Did you see the email from Zelda last night?” Hayden strolled to the light table and propped against it with one arm.

“Yeah, that’s not happening.” Russ talked through a giant bite of croissant. He brushed some crumbs off his shirt and swiveled his chair toward Hayden. “I’m not making a sample ad for a prospective client until we decide we’re going to run ads. That’s putting the cart before a horse that’s not born yet.”

“I think she did say pretty please.”

“Oh, well, off to work I go.”

“Did she say who the client was?” Jessica swiveled to the conversation with her legs crossed under her in the chair. Russ was the senior designer and all office requests went to him exclusively. He parceled out tasks to Jessica or worked them up himself. Hayden crossed his arms, and she noticed the forearm muscles roll his lines of his sharp tattoos. She caught herself staring and blinked away before he saw. 

“No, of course not. So we have no logos to use, no slogans, none of their existing art to play with. It’s a cold sell.” Russ wiped his mouth with a napkin and chucked it while rolling up the bag to save the rest of the food. “I’ll say we’ve got too much to tackle it right now. Maybe next week. If she’s really serious about it, she’ll mention it again, and I’ll talk to Mitchell about the best uses of our time.”

“Did you get to work up those submenus? Did our code files help on that?”

“Ask her. She got to play with that yesterday before lunch.”

“Oh, um, yeah.” Jessica unfolded and turned quickly to the desktop computer. She pulled up the images on the monitor and turned it slightly toward Hayden.

The sun was to his left over the buildings to the 63rd Street side of the building, and he couldn’t see the screen. He bent over her station with one arm on the back of her chair. Jessica saw his eyes move under the double reflection in his glasses, and when he turned his face was surprisingly close to hers. Her shoulders slumped a bit and smiled. He nudged his chin slightly to the side and furrowed his eyebrows for a moment before returning the smile. The reflection gone, she could see his large brown eyes and the beginning of charming age lines around them. What was he doing differently today? 

“Those looks good. I think Mitchell will like the direction we’re headed. Zelda too, hopefully.” He held the eye contact.

“Yeah, hopefully.” She realized she was holding her breath and felt embarrassed by the light perspiration. She broke the look and closed the image folder while clearing her throat. Hayden stood up while still looking at her, before shaking his head and laughing. He slid his palms on the back of his legs and then together as he walked backward from her desk.

“Yeah, good.” He shook his head more and headed back down the stairs. “Thanks, Russ. I’ll check with Eric about the case samples he was working up.”

“Ok. Just let me know.” Russ turned away to his computer station.

“I’ll see you later, Jessica.” He took the stairs in casual, single steps now.

“Yeah, you too. Thanks.” Her wave was a bit too large, her voice a little too loud. She leaned to watch him descend the stairs.

Hayden walked across the code floor to his desk at the back corner of the room, grabbing his coffee from the projection stand. Control sat at her station, running her top teeth over her lip ring. She turned to him as he sat and spoke low.

“She’s like twelve, dude.”

“I had to ask about the submenu. I thought Russ had it.” He matched her soft volume.

“I could hear you. She’s crushing. And you were feeding it.”

“Not me. I’m spoken for.” He kept his eyes on the monitor in front of him and started typing. Control swung her chair slowly back to her own work.

“Good. Twelve. Practically.” Her fingers sped across the keyboard, and the staccato bursts of typing were the only sounds coming from the two floors for a time.

A few hours later, Mitchell and Katherine entered the offices. Hellos were exchanged as they went up the staircase, Katherine audibly wincing a few times. She was sore from the previous day but determined to work through it. This would take the place of a full regiment of rehab exercises. The cane remained in her clinic room.

She slept deeply the night before. Her bath was followed by a large supper brought up by the nurse to coincide with the day’s second battery of vitals and small tests. They chatted about songs and ads from the ‘80s station before the nurse showed her how to work the remote for the small flatscreen TV. Katherine took her time eating and spent the evening sliding through the channels without landing for an appreciable time on any one show. She was curious about what was out there, and hi-def made everything look simultaneously fake and super-real. That was as surprising as the number of channels available. The dark light, the hot bath, the indulgence, the meal, and the screen resolution had the intended effect: Her eyes became heavy quickly, and she curled into the bed. She turned off the TV and the lights and closed down into slumber with the sounds of the city just behind the thick walls of the clinic. 

Mitchell picked her up this morning after her first nurse appointment and a quick breakfast. She watched the morning news programs broadcast from their studios fewer than a dozen miles south of her in Times Square. The Mitchell offices were not even a mile north of them; she enjoyed building a mental map of the city. She looked forward to expanding it in the weeks to come.

She and Mitchell agreed to start video sessions of her therapy at his offices instead of the clinic. There was more room here, especially on the top floor, and the video equipment would only clutter her suite and possibly distract the other patients receiving similar app therapy. Only Katherine would be filmed for now; her recovery would be the most dramatic, and she could speak as a doctor and a patient. Unmentioned but understood was the attention to be garnered by the redemption of a once-infamous murderess.

Seaborn set up the camera next to a chair and aimed it at another with its back to the great glass wall and flue. Katherine’s background would be the high skyline and some of the taller foliage from the park. They scheduled themselves a few hours for the first session, and the office was told to refrain from coming to the top floor. They punctuated their speech for the audience-to-be in a pedantic manner, similar to that of infomercials. They laughed loudly and made an obvious effort to refrain from stepping over each other’s words.

Seaborn manned the camera and helped direct conversation between takes. He asked them to emphasize certain words to better sell the product. He asked that Katherine keep the app phone in her lap at all times, and she practiced moving her hands while keeping it there. They agreed this first session would be a scrimmage to allow everyone to get accustomed to the camera and the style of presentation. They noted where the sun fell later in the day so it wouldn’t splash the camera lens.

Katherine found herself distracted by movement behind her right ear. She assumed it was a gnat, but she never caught sight of it, and then figured it was light catching a curve in the glass surrounding the office. When the disturbance continued despite the movement of the sun, she thought the windows were instead refracting the traffic in the streets. She was sure one blur was birds swooping between the buildings.

“Kevin, I’m getting something moving back here.” She pointed behind her right shoulder. “Do you see anything?”

“No, but we can put up a projection screen if there’s something outside. I’m sure we have one over there in the convention stuff.”

“Is it really noticeable that I’m seeing it?”

“No. I wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t said anything.”

“Andrew, do you see something?”

“I do see birds moving in trees back there. We can get a screen.” He started to rise from the interview chair.

“We can do it the next time we record. No need to play with it now.”

She checked her phone to see if the app was still running, and it appeared so. The waveform looked fine, and the phone had plenty of battery. The field seemed intact so nothing abnormal should be visible to her. Had to be something outside. She’d ignore it. She had years of practice with that sort of thing, after all.

Zelda’s head popped up from the staircase during this break from filming, and Mitchell waved her up. He met her halfway. Justin saw they were speaking and ran back down the staircase to the code floor; he and Zelda had an idea for a new phone service on the drive back from lunch. He nodded hi to Jessica as he descended.

As the sun swung from Jessica’s left over the corner facing her and behind her right shoulder, she continued to feel odd. Warmer than normal and restless. But she also felt languid. She hoped it wasn’t a flu. She thought she remembered hearing a few people cough in the apartments’ laundry room this weekend. She couldn’t stay home. Her absence would bury Russ in work, and they were all in crunch time as it was. She gave a hefty sigh to focus herself and continued overlaying color combinations.

But the memory of Hayden lingered. He stepped past on the stairs once on his way to the marketing floor, and she gave a furtive glance while making sure to stay at her desk. He was oddly distracting today. Her discomfort did not seem to be caused by the office climate; no one else seemed bothered, and they all shared the window wall behind the railings. Russ had left a half hour ago to grab lunch with Eric, and they might be gone for another hour.

She noticed a slight difference when she walked to her drawing table or left the floor for supplies or the bathroom. It was a lessening of pressure in her temple, and she thought she was feeling the onset of a sinus bug. When she sat at her desk, the pressure returned, and she blamed her posture and tried different tilts of her head to assuage the intensity of the pressure. It didn’t seem to help.

With the sun now flush to her right, she was even warmer and more adrift in ideas about Hayden. And that new neighbor three apartments down. Maybe she would see him in the gym tomorrow. Did he use the machines? She couldn’t remember. She recalled the curl of his brown hair in his hoodie and his thick fingers as he carried his clothes hamper to the laundry room. Not that he would feel neighborly when she was hacking her way through a head cold. She made herself a promise to take medicine when she got home and crash early. She might fall asleep thinking of him amid her thick blankets. She sipped some tea leftover from lunch and was aware of licking her lips when she lowered the straw.

Her cup was empty now save for the crushed ice. When she turned her chair to the left to throw away the cup, she bolted back into her chair at the sight of Miles. He was standing just out of reach with her chair. He was dressed exactly the same as he was yesterday – faded green cartoon shirt, fraying jeans – and he looked down at her through the bottom of his eyes. One hand was restless against his leg. The other held a pastel blue cup from downstairs.

“Hey, Jessica.” His breath was nasal and strong as he chewed his lower lip.

“Oh, Miles. Geez. Hey.” She laughed at her surprise but cut it off when he didn’t join in. He rarely laughed along with anyone.

“Just wanted to, uh, I wanted to ask a favor? If you’re not busy?” His breath sped up despite his lack of motion. As Jessica looked up, the pressure in her head increased and a tingle rippled over her scalp. She felt lightheaded, and she put her shoulders against the high chair back. Whatever she was catching was close to full bloom. Russ was going to be pissed.

“Um, yeah. Yeah. Everything’s good. Yeah. Just working up some stuff Eric and Hayden had worked on for Zelda and Justin. You know. Yeah.” She felt incoherent. Maybe she wouldn’t make it through the workday after all.

“I came up to ask if you wanted to come down to the basement for a minute. I’ve got, this, uh, I’ve got a new display setting I’m tinkering with, and it might allow a wider color palette for the icons, you know. But it’s all hooked up downstairs.”

She lowered her head with a hard squint and looked across the design floor. “Well, sure, Miles.”

“Eric and Russ are still gone to lunch, so I thought I’d, um, ask you to come down. With me. Could we do it now?” He licked his lips.

“Sure. Yeah, Give me a minute. I think I’m coming down with something.” She squeezed the armrests and shoved herself up like she was moving in water. Her arm hair was standing. Miles put the cup atop her station cabinet and grabbed her upper arm to help steady her. The cup nearly fell over. She noticed his hand on her arm was sweaty. She found her footing, took a deep breath, and patted his hand away. “Thanks. I’ll be OK once we get to the elevator.”

Miles followed her away from her desk and toward the staircase. He kept his head down and watched her hips as she started down the steps. She held the central staircase pole for support and solely descended. He gave her a few feet of space and then stopped as she got to the code floor.

“Oh, um, I left my cup. I’ll be right back. Go ahead to the elevator.” He thumped up the stairs and sped to her desk. He grabbed the cup and turned to the office to look around. Seeing no one, he quietly put the cup on the desktop and bent over the side drawers under her desk. His breathing seemed too loud, and he took smaller and quieter breaths. 

He slowly and quietly pulled open the lower drawer and pulled out a Fourth Eye phone. It displayed a strong purple waveform and a steady number sequence. His thumb smeared the screen with sweat, and he smiled as he straightened up. He picked up the cup and turned to go back the stairs. Jessica was standing in front of him. She leaned forward slightly. Miles tried to play off the act, and the phone tumbled from his hands across the carpet and toward her.

“Was this in my desk? What is it doing?” She picked it up. He took two steps closer and froze in mid-stride. Standing back up made her woozier still, and the phone sent heat up her arm to her shoulder and neck. It was warm but quiet; the mute symbol glowed in the top corner of the display. Her eyes softened, and her breath labored. The phone felt heavier with each second, and she tossed it flat onto the light table. Her arm remained extended in the air.

“Miles, what is this?” She stared at him. He was locked in the same half-walking stance. He licked his lips and blinked quickly. His hands swiped his pants legs, but he said nothing. “I came back for my purse. I figured I should go home straight from the basement.” His hesitance implied calculation. She was now very much not in the mood for whatever this was. She found her breath easily now.

“MILES, WHAT IS IT DOING?”

Footsteps now from above and below. The squeaking of chairs and hard closing of cabinets. The staircase shook with quick footfalls.

“Jessica?” Control shouted before she rose into view, and immediately she moved to Jessica’s side. “What’s going on? You OK?” Control gave her a once over. Jessica swayed, and her eyes were heavy. She followed the direction of her arm to the light table and saw the phone.

Control picked it up and was hit by a dense pulse in her forehead. Her upper palate seemed to widen, and a breath tugged up her ribs so hard she stumbled backward. She turned off the app with her thumb as the landing of the staircase filled with coworkers. More steps were heard coming from the top floor. Control waved the phone, Polaroid-style, to shake off the sensation. She wiped it with the palm of her other hand and held the phone out toward him as turned her head to look at him out of the corners of her eyes.

“Miles.”

He stayed still, and his breath slowed. He said nothing. Jessica shook her head hard, and her vision cleared a little. Her breath was shaky. Control grabbed her elbow with her other hand. The two women stared at him.

“Is that what was wrong today? You used the app on me?” She shrugged off Control’s hand and took a step toward him. She blinked hard twice. Miles could see her tongue settling behind her bottom teeth as she settled herself. His mouth parted in reaction. Eric and Hayden walked to Control. Hayden picked up the phone and slid the app controls open.

“This is one of our old templates. It’s just on/off. There’s no modulation.” He thumbed the virtual keyboard and revealed a code screen on simple black background. Eric stood at his shoulder and watched the display. Mitchell landed at the floor stoop and walked to the men. “It’s set to some other feed than the five we’ve got online. It looks like it’s been set to incremental increases over a set time. Look, there’s the start time. That’s this morning.”

Mitchell took the phone, made the code vanish, and found the app display. He activated it and immediately held the phone at arm’s length. The posture of the other two men straightened, and their eyes narrowed. Control stepped away from it and closer to Jessica, who was now making fists at her sides.

“MILES.” Control took a step forward and widened into a showdown stance.

He jerked at the volume. His lips rolled into his mouth, and his jaw settled.

“I just wanted -- ” His voice was deep but soft. His eyebrows began to converge.

“YOU WANTED WHAT?”

“To feel it. To feel … that.”

Mitchell continued to hold the phone up and away from everyone in the room as he stepped behind Jessica and closer to the staircase. He saw the mute option and pressed the icon to cancel it. A deep metallic whine came over the phone at full voice, and he squeezed his thumb on the volume control to muffle it. It was a sound he had heard just the day before. In the basement subsection.

“The Pretorious machine,” Katherine said halfway down the staircase, her head just under the design room’s ceiling. She was staring at the screen, one hand on the railing for support, and the other at her temple, fingertips rubbing just above and behind her eye. Mitchell turned the app off and pocketed the phone.

“You alright?”

“Yes, but now I know why I was seeing things upstairs. I was sitting just above her desk. It canceled out my phone’s effects.”

Mitchell walked to Jessica and put a gentle hand on her back.

“How about you?”

“I need to sit.” Jessica was now shaking, and her eyes were wet. She sniffed the words out, and Control led her to Russ’s station. Jessica walked backward, watching Miles every step. Mitchell also kept his eye on him.

“You hooked up the Pretorious model to the server? You ran it over this phone?”

Miles’s eyes swept the room. He could only see angry faces staring back. He had no way of pulling someone to his defense. Mitchell titled his head forward.

“You were going to get her alone in the basement? After running this app all day? In her desk?” His voice textured. “You need to go. Now.”

“All I –“

“Now.” Mitchell opened his stance to slightly turn his shoulders to Eric. “Go down with him to the basement and watch him cut that thing off. Then you take his door card and call the police.”

Eric crossed behind Mitchell in Miles’s sightline. “Come on. Let’s go, Miles.”

Miles returned Mitchell’s squint for a second before lowering his eyes and taking a step to Mitchell’s left. Mitchell grabbed his arm. He leaned close to Miles’s head despite the smell.

“You better hope the police meet you in the lobby before I do.”

Katherine watched Miles and Eric move toward her and to the opposite side of the pole to head down. Miles shoved his hands in his pockets and threw his shoulders into his gait a few paces behind Eric. She watched their movement between the steps below her until they reached the lobby floor. Everyone remained silent to hear the elevator announce its presence, receive the pair, and carry them away. Hayden and Mitchell closed ranks between the light table and the staircase with shaking heads. Control knelt next to Jessica and whispered; Jessica nodded and held her head in her hands. Katherine knew she should speak to her too and began to step off the stairs.

The bug swooped in from behind her and down into the design room, hewing close to the ceiling and through the tan wall. It was the same action she saw a thousand times at the Kingsport facility, but the novelty of seeing it so clearly and seeing it here startled her. She flinched hard, almost squatting. She caught herself on the railing as her knee stiffened. She squeezed a breath through her teeth and righted herself, eyes closed and head shaking in disappointment. She had hoped all this was behind her. She was again only one simple app away from the disbelief of everything around her and embarrassing instinctive dodges. Back to the surrounding expressions of pity and disdain. It was only a week removed. Only a week of stability and tranquility. Was that all she would get? She steadied herself and pulled her hair back with a finger when she realized everyone was staring at the wall in the exact spot the bug had vanished.

“What was that?” Control left Jessica’s side and moved to the wall. Hayden turned and scanned that half of the room. “Guys?”

“That looked big. It was quick, but I don’t know what that was.” Mitchell was the farthest from the wall, near Jessica’s desk and the flue behind the railings. Hayden turned at the waist toward him but looked out the window toward the park.

“Maybe that was a bird shadow.” Hayden said. “Or a reflection off a kite? Did you all see that?”

Katherine stopped. Her blood ran cold under her collar bones and plummeted to her legs.

“Did you see that too?” She could feel her pulse in her throat. “Did everyone else see that?”

The others exchanged looks.

“Is that what you saw? In Kingsport?” Hayden asked. “But how did we --?”

Russ’s phone vibrated on his drafting table. One pulse, then two. Then the display lit up bright purple, and a distorted metallic whine rose before leveling into the sound everyone heard from the phone from Jessica’s desk. The waveform appeared and sped across the screen. The display was a blur, the numerals indecipherable.

Mitchell picked up the phone and thumbed the mute button but the whine continued, the cycle looping, deeper and quicker. The phone shuddered in his hand and turned warm. He caught his breath and jerked his head back. He pressed the button to close the app. The whine continued. The screen screamed bright purple. He mashed his finger on the power button atop the phone. Nothing. He tried again with two thumbs, and the sound and waveform continued, insistent. Katherine knew the sound immediately and clutched the staircase railing. It was the Pretorious resonator. Control stood up and stepped toward Mitchell.

“How the hell is it -- ”

From upstairs in the marketing room came the same crescendo and plateau through another phone. A phone in the marketing office shouted. Then through the design floor, from the code office, another phone followed immediately by one closer, the sound launched up the staircase. Three phones in a box along the back wall shelf sang in unison. From the top floor conference room, the resonator signal burst through the air multiple times in quick succession. Ten times. A dozen.

Katherine pulled the phone from her pocket and watched it change from a slow orange waveform to a blur of purple. The brassy scraping noise cried up to her, and she felt her hands go hot. Her vision blurred, and she clutched the railing. She gasped. The phone dropped to the floor and bounced down the steps to the design carpet. It settled screen up, facing the ceiling and streaming the purple shapes with the scramble of numbers.

The layer of identical sounds became a heavy hum behind the ears and on the back of the neck. It was everywhere now. Streaming up the flue and reverberating off the glass wall and along the floors of the Mitchell offices, echoing in the stairwell and inside the mostly empty top floor room. The sound lifted to the glass tiles and rang them like heavy pipes. The air took a pink tinge and thickened. It stirred with a hefty wind cycling through the floors. Papers and photos pinned to cabinets flipped and alighted, the circulation pattern made obvious. It spiraled up to the top floors before swinging back around the stairs.

Katherine winced. As each of the crew turned to the noise, they blinked and stooped slightly. The pulse in their heads and chests spread to their limbs. They opened their stances and found their arms raised to almost shoulder height, a silent communal revival dance. Jessica bent forward in her chair in the crash position. Control leaned on the light table. They flashed hot and panted. Barely upright, Mitchell pressed all the buttons of the phone and stabbed the display with his fingers.

“I can’t turn it off. It won’t turn off.” His voice was loud over the din of the phones and the wind.

Katherine remembered the attic, remembered what Crawford had told her about the night Edward died, remembered the machine screaming awake on its own and refusing his efforts to turn it off.

“It’s running itself. You have to turn off the resonator.”

Hayden stumbled closer to Mitchell and shouted in his face. 

“We have to call Eric and tell him to hurry! He has to cut off the machine now!” 

He pulled out his cellphone and struck the icon for Eric’s number. He hunched toward the glass wall, leaning on the railing and cramming the phone against his head. It rang twice before the connection was made. Hayden could hear nothing. He bent over the rail, mouth wide, arm shuddering.

“Eric? ERIC? ERIC, LISTEN YOU HAVE –“

He heard a scream and something solid crashed into Hayden’s back, squeezing him against the railing before rolling off and thumping on the floor at his feet. The phone flew from his hand at the collision. It spiraled down through the flue before exploding on the lobby floor. Hayden grabbed the rail with both hands and watched the pieces skip across the marble floor. Then he turned to see what hit him.

It resembled a frog more than a spider, but it had too many legs. They kicked the air as it rolled from side to side. It was translucent, a high shade of pink with black inky organs inside, moving like a sack of worms. It made two horrible noises: the squeals from its mouth full of small jagged teeth and the slippery, wet lapping of its fingers and limbs. Hayden stepped back, disgusted, and heard another scream. Jessica slapped hands over her mouth and curled up in Russ’s chair. Between them were seven more of the creatures, hopping and crawling, leaving wet spots on the carpet and inspecting the room with their flat dumb eyes. Katherine and Mitchell were frozen near the stairs. Control was inching along the wall closer to Jessica.

A heavy drone came from upstairs. Hayden thought of bees, and he craned slightly over the rail, looking up to see what he could spy. Indistinct movement swirled from the top floor but nothing was reflected on the glass wall. Something knocked over a chair on the floor below him, and he turned around to catch a glimpse. When his back was to the room, Control yelled “Hayden!” and a spiny tube curled around his ankle. 

It pulled him backward. His shoe slipped off. He looked down to see a blood red tongue stretching back to one of the monsters. Hayden clutched the railing with both hands. The tongue had no give, and it yanked him to the ground. The frog spider leaned backward, bracing its hind pair of legs into the carpet. The mouth was wide and dripping, the top of the mouth rising and closing in croaks and squeals. The eye cluster blinked independently, and the head jerked back to free Hayden of the rail. Hayden got traction off the carpet, and the monster’s feet crept forward to close the distance. The mouth opened wider, revealing scores of small teeth and a quivering throat.

Hayden thought it was screaming at him before he realized the sound was his own.


	21. Chapter 21

“HAYDEN? CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

Eric held his smartphone to one ear with a finger clogging the other. The app phone sat in the corner of the moving elevator screaming the resonator wave to the ceiling. 

Miles had shoved himself into the corner with hands in pockets and wide eyes. He stared at the phone on the floor, the purple shapes running across the screen and the numbers jumbling atop each other.

He had programmed the Pretorious model to link only to the phone he put in Jessica’s desk. The tour with Katherine and the sight of Jill the assistant in the Miskatonic video had inspired him, and he remained at the office all night. He dusted off the model from a tower cabinet near his desk. It was slightly smaller than the original, but exact in proportion, a product of modern fabricators set to scale. The original had been directly wired into motherboards of the room-sized computers in the Pretorious house. Miles spent many hours that night coupling the connections and adapting the model to link to a master server adapter for modern systems.

He moved a few rubber gardening storage boxes away from his desk to clear space. They sat on the plastic tarp on the concrete floor between his station and Eric’s. A few of the tools inside the storage bins were needed to convert the control knobs and dummy switches to exacting digital pads. One display monitored the wave amplitudes; another the intensity of the broadcast. The machine was a tuner, after all -- a giant electromagnetic antennae. The small resonators in the cabinet could be modulated to lower and wider wavelengths. But the Pretorious machine was built to reach one frequency at a specific energy apex. It was the scientist’s philosophy made manifest: More is not enough. Even the cylindrical shape and bulbous cap embodied the physical extension of the man. It was Pretorious’s gaudy effort to pierce the veil between worlds, and Miles admired the primal symbolism.

It stood proud in the center of his station. He removed his chair, preferring to stand at the computer and turn to the resonator when needed. The forks atop the machine almost touched the ceiling. The multiple power cords at its quarter-hour positions twisted into one giant bundled rope, stout and heavy, that lead to a repurposed junction box. From the back of the box ran a number of thin, stiff black wires leading to a gray breaker box halfway up the wall and tucked behind a server cabinet in the corner. Miles hadn’t slept. He hadn’t eaten. He ran at a methodical pace from task to task, updating all the connections and teaching the servers to recognize it amid the thousands of other network endings. 

When he switched on the resonator, it hummed at its lowest setting. Miles adjusted the output, and it grew louder and brighter until it sang out its distortion and evened into a shimmering trill. The forks slowly glowed pink and vibrated. Miles immediately felt the warmth in his chest and head. The air felt too thick to move within his lungs properly, and his chest pumped to give him breath. This wasn’t what he felt with the orange wavelength from the app phone. This was more. This was a gossamer electricity coating his body. The light breeze moving around the machine rustled his hair and shirt, slipping over his exposed skin with warmth and a flinty texture. He closed his eyes and raised his arms to take it in. He was transfixed.

A sound from along the wall pathway startled him, and he shut down the machine with a click of his station mouse. The resonator moaned to silence, and Miles stayed in place, one hand still at shoulder height in the air. He heard nothing more. He slowly edged his way toward the corner of his station, making the slightest crinkles in the plastic tarp and balancing himself by holding onto the cabinet corner in front of him. Aware of his loud nasal sounds, he swallowed his breath and eased his head around the corner.

Nothing. Everything looked normal. He tilted an ear toward the pathway in case whatever it was had backed around the far corner to Eric’s station. He heard no more amid the constant thrum of the servers on their thin tower frames and the whine of the cooling fans. Something jostled by the resonator breeze, he thought. Maybe something settling after the vibrations of the machine. 

He turned back to the machine and heard small ticks and pops as it cooled inside. He regarded it for a second as it towered over him and took on a surprising amount of space for its relatively small dimensions. It seemed even bigger now. It seemed to have grown.

Miles walked back to the computer with the full weight on his feet, dismissing the need to be quiet. He assigned the resonator the name of its creator for the purposes of code and cracked open the back of a Fourth Eye phone. He connected that to the server under a new name (“Socks”) and told the phone to recognize only the Pretorious machine. That was relatively simple after the uncertainty of the effort to bring the resonator to life.

Holding the altered phone, he rolled the mouse on the desktop, found the Pretorious icon he created in a subfolder, and clicked it. The resonator awoke, and Miles made a quick adjustment to keep it at a low lull. He thumbed the phone display, and a thick purple line bisected the screen. He slowly moved the mouse. The resonator grew louder. The line jumped into a waveform. The mouse barely budged again, and the resonator bellowed. The waveform swelled. The pink glow and wind retuned, and Miles’s knees softened.

He leaned against the station and closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply and raised his head. He straightened his posture and felt a welcome heaviness in his groin. His mind flew to the image of Jessica on her mattress, raised on her elbows, her jersey nightshirt hitched around her hips, and her crossed ankles bobbing slightly above the back of her thighs and the soft cotton underwear. He smiled and hummed in rhythm with his breath. He took his hand off the mouse and set it against his sternum and stomach. It slid inside his jeans, and his fingers wrapped around his erection and squeezed. 

He set down the phone in front of him, faced the work station lost in his dream, and turned his back to the machine standing behind and above him. The tines of the forks shivered near the roof of the basement. Their pink glow cast deep shadows behind the cabinets ringing his safe solitary corner. His eyes were fixed upon though not following the purple waveform. He was lost in his rare delight.

That was then.

Now he was in the descending elevator, and the purple form was on this other phone, a phone he had not connected to the resonator, yet its whine funneled the through the phone and filled the box. Odd flapping noises and thumps were heard atop the thin ceiling, rattling the plastic light cover a foot from their heads. Miles looked up, breathing heavy. Eric stared at his phone.

“I lost the signal. Can’t be the elevator, that phone’s obviously still working.” Eric put the phone back in his pocket and jabbed the button for the basement. “Come on.”

Thump. Thump thump. Eric crouched and jerked his head upward. Miles barely moved but remained scrunched in the corner, his shoulders high around his ears. Thump. THUMP! More flapping.

“How did we get birds in here? That thing’s driving them nuts.” Eric was hesitant to pick up the phone; the sheer volume kept his distance. Crouched, he snuck up on it. His hand bounced back and forth in the air with his heartbeat. Sweat grew above his eyes. He eased himself farther down and snatched up the phone. The heat swept up his arm and down to his hips and thighs. He pulled it close to his body and pushed his palm against its back to shove off the battery cover. It snapped off and clattered on the floor. He dug his fingertips against the battery but couldn’t get leverage. He reached into his pocket for his keys and swept his forehead while his hand clutched the keys. He gouged at the battery with no success. He could feel the wave cycle on his hand and belly. The rapid vibration started to hurt his fingers and palm.

The elevator doors softly slid open. Eric, still hunched over, sidled out and to the right. The resonator noise echoed off the walls. He yelled over his shoulder.

“Come on, Miles! We gotta shut that thing down!”

Miles shoved off the elevator wall with his shoulder. He kept a wide space between him and Eric. They turned the corner toward the tech dungeon. Miles heard a wet slap above the echoes. He thought he felt it in his shoes too. He froze and waited for it to repeat, and it did. Much louder. Much closer. It was around the corner behind them, near the elevator. 

That wasn’t a bird, Miles thought. There was no distant light to cast a shadow on the walls Miles could see. There was only the sensations to suggest what it was, and Miles wanted to know no more. Then whatever it was screamed.

A shredded texture carried on the exhalation. A cough and a yell combined, rising and falling and rising again to a high, stuttering screech. It ended with what sounded like the reverberation of a body shudder, air catching in ridges to end in something close to a stuttering purr. The echoes bounced around the corner and faded into tinny nothingness.

Miles walked faster, and Eric now was frozen. He shoved the keys back into his pocket and reached behind him to his wallet. Retaining a hold of the phone, he wrapped his fingertips around it enough to pinch the door card out of the wallet. His hands shook, and he dropped the wallet. They thing around the corner slapped at the floor again. It was closer, practically at the edge of the corner. It was rushing at them.

Miles hopped twice and took to his toes, dashing toward Eric and the subsection doors. As he approached Eric, he held out his hands. Eric was bewildered by the movement.

“What are -- ”

Miles grabbed the phone and the door card. Eric tightened his grip out of reflex and tried to tug them back. Miles dipped at his knees and waist and lifted quickly back up against Eric, shoving him against the cement wall and pulling the items. His hand immediately hurt from the hot vibration of the phone, and he winced at the volume of the resonator noise. Eric stuck against the wall for a second, the breath rising out of him, and his head making a dull sound. He fell to the floor, his hands flying to the back of his head. He curled on the floor before trying to get his knees under him to stand back up.

Miles ran to the door and slid the card through the reader. He only got it halfway up the track, and the number pad failed to light up. A new slap clearly hit the wall right around the corner.

“Shit!” Miles raised and slid the card again. The pad lit. Miles punched the code, and the door cracked open and began the slow swing inside. The phone noise was eclipsed by that of the machine in the back of the room. Pink light shot out the doors and onto the opposite wall. Miles squeezed through and pushed against the door to close it. A solid bang hit the other side, and he shouted in surprise.

“Miles, let me in! Let me in!” Eric’s elbow and forearm pressed against the door. He couldn’t stand up fully, and his knees dragged against the floor. “Miles! Miles, please! Come on! PLEASE!”

Miles could see him through the crack of the door, and Eric was looking back from below Miles’s waistline with wide eyes. One was dark red. A line of blood slipped from his scalp over his left eye. His breath hitched. He couldn’t find the full volume of voice.

Another scream from down the hall, now clearly from this side of the corner. Eric turned to it and found his voice. He screamed high until his voice cracked.

“MILES! MILES! COME ON!” Miles had no intention of looking at the thing approaching. Quick and heavy slaps at the floor were just on the opposite side of the server room walls, and Eric’s head lifted up, his eyes unblinking and gaping.

“OH GOD! NO! NO!” Miles shoved the door, against the automatic hinge and Eric’s weight. Miles locked his arms and braced his feet against the floor, clenching his teeth. The door motion quickened to the frame, and Eric’s hand repeatedly smacked the door as it closed.

“MILES! MILES! MILES!” The door creaked against the weights on both sides before inching closer to the opposite door. Eric’s screams were already growing softer. Miles grunted as he gave the door another shove through his toes and knees and hips and elbows. One hand spread wide and the other gripping the phone and card pressed on the back of the door, he forced against the frame edge, and the bolt slid against the door sheath. It popped into place, locking it shut.

The heavy slaps outside sped up, more obvious through Miles’s shoes and calves. He stood back panting. The phone continued to whine and vibrate in his hand. Eric screamed in short bursts, slightly muffled behind the thick door. The door was sealed, and no light snuck under it to show shadowed movements. Eric’s forearm slid off the door, but the hand continued to pound, and Miles heard a low growl on the opposite side of the doorframe. The growl grew louder, suggesting a mouth opening wide. Eric’s short yells stopped for a second before he unleashed a nearly inhuman cry at full throat that was instantly lost inside whatever hovered over him. The sound wasn’t reaching the walls anymore. They were inside a maw. The scream ended in mid-pitch, followed by a noise very much like the churning of wet gravel.

Miles high-stepped back from the door and squelched his breathing in case whatever was out there could discern it over the sounds of the Pretorius machine. Something heavy slid against the floor in the hall. It was accompanied by lighter slaps moving backward toward the corner. The sounds grew softer and eventually was lost under the resonator. Miles backed through the small path between the server towers toward Eric’s station. Phones in varying degrees of assembly there shone violet, the waveform racing across their screens. He turned and jogged through the corridor and onto the plastic tarp halfway to his corner area. He felt the wind shake his hair and shirt. He turned the corner and saw the resonator in full glory. The tines shuddered high above the purple globe. Inside was a brisk cloudy rotation of light and dark. It washed over and around him.

He was sent here to turn it off. That was before the signal had spread to other phones. Miles knew that meant the signal was now throughout the building, even at the highest floors where so many were kept. How many? 20? 30? What did it sound like up there? Katherine was up there. She said she saw these things when the Pretorious resonator was on, that monsters had attacked her and killed the others. If the things in the elevator shaft and the hallway were lured by the signal, they might be now throughout the building.

One resonator had a defined broadcast radius. A handful in close proximity would have an interlaced field. The signals would strengthen in those overlapping segments. The field of interaction would be the most intense. But they had many more phones, all shouting the same wavelength at highest volume. They would respond to each other. The Mitchell offices would be an unbroken sphere of crossover. She said she saw eels and bugs came through with one machine. What would come through with dozens? Nowhere in the building would be safe.

Except here. Here, alone in the basement, at the controls of the machine in his computer, he could instantly switch it off if anything came near him. One glimpse, one sound, and he could end it. But he would wait. He had been humiliated upstairs. The crew took their opportunity to belittle and shame him. No one came to his defense, even to argue his intent was a natural extension of what they were working toward. He had given Jessica a singular intensity of feeling. Whether she liked it or not, he did that for her. To her. Miles grinned. He straightened his shoulders with a deep breath. So let them freak out a while. He’d deactivate the machine, and they’d be grateful he saved them. All of them. She. What would she do in gratitude? What could he ask of her then?

He thought again of the nightshirt and the socks, and he put down the vibrating phone on his desk. He moved between the resonator and his cabinet and stood in front of his computer. He put his hands on the edge of the counter wide at his sides and turned to face the resonator. The counter and floor shook his limbs. He closed his eyes and threw his head back to let the field soak him through. He was proud. He felt strong and hard. He gave a sigh and let Jessica move in his mind, on the mattress, rolling onto her back and stretching her legs.

He heard a noise. A tight pitched yell like the neigh of a scared and injured horse. It came from behind the cabinet tower around the corner from his station, near the back of the building, tucked in shadow. A sharp noise, it came in small gasps, accompanied by heavy swoops and flutters. It was not a piece of equipment buffeted by the winds of the resonator. It was something new, something that did not belong.

Another screech became a thick gargle. Miles kept his hands on the counter edge and slid closer to the corner. The sound was maybe a foot off the floor, but there was no accompanying floor vibration as with the thing in the hallway. Miles picked up one foot and placed it next to the other, then lifted that foot and eased it forward. He was making the softest possible shuffling, but it could not be heard amid the ruckus of the machine that stood three feet from him. He came to the edge of the station and turned his right shoulder toward it so he could lean and peek. He closed his eyes. With shallow, nasal breaths and a ferocious heartbeat, he moved his head forward by millimeters, until his eyes passed the edge of the cabinet and he could behold the thing making the sound.

It was beige and leathery. It hung from the ceiling, and its protrusion bobbing near the floor swiveled and rolled. Neck movements. Restless. The head was wide but hidden by the bottoms of large shapes. Wings, Miles thought. Like a giant bat. He could see no feet, because the wings stretched tight to pointed armatures that traced the ceiling. The wings began from the forearms of the creature near the head, folding and rustling atop each other. They parted slightly, and Miles saw a segmented torso. No, a thorax. Upside down like this, it was pyramidal, but the apex was shadowed by the wings. When the wings parted again, he could see its head.

It was that of a wasp or an ant. A broad trapezoid with curling, layered bone strands that tapered to a mouth. It had thick jaws like horns that met just beyond the mouth, which also sported two symmetrical growths that curved into grotesque thorns. Atop the head were two fat nodules that tapered into fangs, like a spider mouth. Near the back of the head the bone strands curled as flat ram horns, surrounding a brain. There were no eyes. But when Miles’s body followed his head around the corner and the wings had parted to reveal its own face, the creature’s head stopped moving and aimed its horns and jaws squarely at him.

The horns parted, and the mouth opened vertically, exposing a wide ridged tube, screaming at him. The arms opened wide near the floor, stretching onto the cabinet façade and against the far wall. The thin arms ended in triangular hands with incredibly long fingers. Its reach was immense. Miles backed up closer to the resonator, feeling the vibrations push against his back through the air. The creature inhaled deep and stretched its head at him, shouting and clear gel dripping upside down onto the floor, puddling beneath it. It no longer looked like a bat. It was a dragon.

Now Miles screamed in return, and the creature dropped heavy onto the cement. It thudded and gathered itself under the wing folds, turning the body and head which stayed just inches from the floor. It propped itself on the bent elbows, with fingers casually intertwining far away from it. It screamed again, a wretched exclamation, and Miles turned fully away and ran. He toed the tarp and his back leg threw forward for a step and clipped his front leg. He threw out his arms to stop himself but fell onto the crinkling floor in two percussive wallops -- first his shoulder than his head. Blinking light invaded his vision, and the sound of the resonator dimmed. His own groan of protest seemed far away. He scrambled to get up on his elbows, and a shadow fell over him.

A crushing weight slammed his chest to the floor, and the long fingers clutched his shoulders, pulling them up and arching his back with ease. Miles cried out. His muscles compressed against his hips, and he threw his head back in a shout of pain. The monster had him.

It lowered its head close to his and stretched its mouth down. Miles’s head slipped inside the gap of the vertical jaws. He felt the thick edges of the skin on his temples, and he shook away. The horns closed slowly, the points centering his head inside the mouth. Miles lurched his chin away from the points and further back, allowing the mouth to close around him in wet darkness. The smell was horrible. Meaty and salty.

His neck felt cold in contrast, and he could no longer shake his head. A tight ring inside the throat grabbed his skull, squeezing tight, deeper and deeper into his scalp, and Miles screamed through clenched teeth. Then the ring forced his head to turn slowly to the left. Miles felt the strain on his neck, and the muscles resisted the torque. But only for a moment. Then they began to pop and pull away from the shoulders, and Miles could feel them give way under his skin. His head jerked forward as the muscles snapped free.

His head moved more smoothly to the left. Now his chin was past his shoulder. The pain was incredible. The muscles shredded, and he shouted against the ridged palate. His sound grew weak and puckered as the throat squeezed closed. He was now facing completely backward, his head connected solely by his spine. The dragon snapped its jaws together, and the vertebrae succumbed. One more crunch, and Miles’s head was now free of the body, leaving behind a twisted scrape of flesh and muscle, coated in goop.

Miles was still aware. He could see dimly down the throat of the monster. It was a pale, splotchy tube leading to darkness. His throat pushed to scream, and a thin gush of air passed his mouth. He looked down against his cheeks and could see his shoulders and hands flail on the plastic tarp. He couldn’t open his mouth further to scream, and the horn points pushed against the bottom of his head, shoving him back into the gullet. Peristalsis took over, and the tube undulated around him, folding his ears and pulling his hair against the throat. His scream and the light were gone.

He was in utter blackness, a hot damp pocket, and quick rivulets of searing liquid flowed into his scalp. He realized he was being digested. The dragon’s stomach removed his outer layers like a peel to get into his brain which had been recently consumed, in another sense, with wires and spite and a bright, desperate hope that a blond girl would give herself to him.

Jessica, he thought. Jessica.

Then nothing.


	22. Chapter 22

It was mid-afternoon when Zelda, Justin, and Russ came back from their lunch meeting. Another prospective client wanted to discuss advertising options on the Fourth Eye platform. As the senior of the two designers, Russ was conscripted to offer on-the-spot answers to any notions the client could come up with between breadsticks and the restaurant receipt. He thought he did well not to laugh out loud for most of them.

The cab dropped them off outside the door to the building, and they made their way to the double set of glass doors.

“I’m sorry, Russ.”

“We’re really sorry, Russ.”

“We won’t do that again, Russ.”

“You know when I realized this was bad?” Russ shouted. “When the phrase ‘intensive reciprocal syllogism’ was used for the third time.” Russ headed straight for the building while Justin paid the cabbie. Zelda was caught in between at the cab door. “I mean, did he get a nickel every time he used it? Did he think we would agree to a contract just so he would reveal what it meant?”

Justin slid out of the cab and raced past Zelda, who thanked the driver and closed the car door. She took fast, small steps, bound as she was in the tight black skirt.

“And why would we offer an app platform that interrupts a meditative program to sell them techniques for relaxation?” Russ threw open the first glass door. “They can save the money, and throw the phone into the river. Maybe we can make our millions with a phone catapult.”

“It was brainstorming, Russ. Just tossing pasta on the wall. We do it all the time.”

“No.” Russ stopped in the airlock lobby and turned on his heels, finger jabbed at Justin’s chin. “What we do is cook up ideas around a specific goal. What he was doing was babbling and hoping genius would fall out of his head. Worse, he wanted me to be the one to come up with his campaign without paying for a marketing service. He was fishing for free ideas. The only times I’m asked to come along to one of these lunches is because the clients want artists to do everything for free. He wanted to impress me with his inspired ideas so I’d give him a complete ad package out of gratitude for my proximity to divinity. It’s a waste of your time and mine.” Russ turned away and pulled open the second set of doors.

“These are the people who want to pay us. They’re who we’re supposed to talk to.” Zelda stomped past Justin who was stymied into place. “What are you bringing to the company?”

“I’m bringing years of skill and judgment built on my vast experience with a multitude of media and tools.” They were now all inside the building lobby, just a few feet inside the doors, in an increasingly loud triangle. “Give me a direction, and I can create a landscaped path from thought to product. What we suffered through just now was a drunken stagger through a PowerPoint thesaurus. I’m tired of these. Talk to me when I have a springboard.”

“If you’re so great at this stuff, what are you doing here?” Zelda smirked and narrowed her eyes.

“I’m making the stuff that drives people to buy ad-free programs. And you’re asking me to make ads. You really don’t see the conflict here?” Russ grabbed his jacket labels and tugged them straight to adjust the lay on his shoulder and neck. He settled down and reset himself.

“We’re better than these conversations with those guys the moment we tell ourselves we are. Every time we chase rabbits, we walk off the trail.” He tightened his knot and pressed his tie against his chest with his palm. “We should be figuring out how to market our own product, not theirs. That’s their job. We get this phone right, and they’ll come to us. And that’s easier for all of us, right? Good.” He flashed a flat smile and angled toward the elevators. That’s when he stopped cold and turned in a small circle.

“Why is it all pink in here?”

The lobby was shimmering in high magenta tones. The quick contrasts of dark and light strands along the ceiling made them think the light was reflecting off water, but the lobby had no such decorative feature. There was no source for the light. It was simply everywhere, rippling across the ceiling and coffee stand. There was no one working there. The lobby was empty except for the trio.

“Did someone turn on the heat?” Justin flapped his jacket and walked with Zelda to Russ near the elevators. “The air feels like it’s cranked to Ecuador.”

“Think it’s a fire drill?”

“Wouldn’t everyone else be standing outside?” Zelda pushed the up arrow. “And there’s no alarm.”

“Maybe it’s some promotion from one of the other offices.” Justin stepped inside and pressed the button for the Mitchell suite. The light was also in here. The doors closed. “There’s, what, an accountant firm and a digital sound company under us. We’re supposed to talk to a few of them next month.”

“Well, now this is what I’m talking about,” Russ watched the display as the numerals increased. “They’ve got their campaign in motion already.”

“You hear that?” Justin titled his head and stretched it slightly to the doors. “Sounds like crickets. A lot of them.”

“Maybe it’s a white-sound sleep aid. They sell those right?” Now the sounds seemed more like howls, far off and feral.

“I don’t know.” Justin moved closer to the door and held up a finger to ask for quiet. “Maybe there’s animals in the elevator shaft.”

“I think if we had animals in the building, we would have seen them by now.” The elevator slowed to a halt and dinged twice. The doors began to open, and the three moved their gazes from the elevator ceiling to the Mitchell lobby. Before the doors could fully open, Jessica and Control crashed inside, squeezing through the doors and yelling.

“CLOSE THE DOORS! CLOSE THE DOORS!” Jessica was in first, spinning into the elevator wall. Control pulled herself through, carrying an aluminum baseball bat, swept in front of the button console and repeatedly stabbed the Close Doors button. The bat was covered in liquid that varied in shades of black to near transparency. The women sagged against the wall as the doors slowly inched together.

Noises from the floors above them could be heard in the flue. The resonator whine rang out throughout the offices. Low guttural croaks and high birdsong echoed off the windows. Furniture fell to the carpet and banged on the cabinetry. Something hollow and plastic tumbled down the staircase. Short human shouts rang out. A sharp scream followed before it was stifled into muffled tones. Russ stood in the middle of the box and peered out. He thought he saw long swooping strings sail toward the wall near the marketing floor and curl along the tan wall on the opposite side of the building. A large bang jostled the doors the instant they closed, and the women jumped with a shared yelp.

Control’s jeans were ripped at the calves. She had a cut on her cheek. Jessica’s shirt was missing a sleeve, and she was barefoot. Justin stepped back from them as they panted and bent at the waist, hands above their knees holding them upright. The bat in Control’s right hand angled toward Russ and the others. It dripped quickly onto the green-and-blue carpet and seeped deep into the weave. The smell scrunched Zelda’s face, and she threw herself into the opposite corner.

“Oh, God, what is that? What’s going on out there?”

“Miles (inhale) did something (inhale) to the phones.” Control’s torso bobbed with every breath. She raised up and leaned her head against the wall. The bat head bounced off the wall once, and she leaned on the other end with the flat of her hand. “The doctor wasn’t crazy (inhale). She saw monsters. (inhale) They’re here.”

“What? Are you OK?” Russ put his hand on Jessica’s bare shoulder, and she shook her head violently.

“They almost got Hayden. It was dragging him to eat him, and Mitchell kicked it in the head,” Jessica said.

“It what?”

“It’s all real! The lights, the wind, the things. Didn’t your phones go off?”

“We left them at the office.” Zelda covered her mouth with her hands. Her voice was a murmur. “Mitchell didn’t want them sitting out at the restaurant.”

“We couldn’t open the elevator. Something broke the call buttons. We saw the arrow light up, and we ran for it. I don’t know what chased us. I didn’t want to see.”

“We got everyone up to the top floor (inhale) and hid near the white board. (inhale) We couldn’t get a hold of Eric and Miles. They (inhale) were supposed to shut it off in the basement.” Control took a deep breath, held it, closed her eyes, and puffed the air out slowly. “That was a while ago. I think we need to go down there. They might need help.”

“What’s out there?” Justin was mesmerized by the drops of pitch falling from the bat. Control looked down at Jessica, still bent over, and they slowly shook their heads.

“Monsters,” they said in unison.

“Should we try to get the others? They’re on the top floor right? Isn’t there a fire stairwell back there?”

“There’s things on the stairs,” Control said. “We helped the doctor get across the floor and thought we had it made. Mitchell opened the door and saw something. We stayed behind the white board. McMichaels said we were safe if we stayed still. We got my bats and huddled.”

“I said I could run for it.” Jessica said. She stood up fully and patted Russ’s hand. “I’m OK. I run every morning. I thought I could get to the elevator and get down and help the guys.

“I got as far as the code floor before one of them chased me down the stairs, and I fell, and I guess I yelled. I heard it running down the steps, and I was on the floor. I slipped trying to get up, and it caught my arm. It was pulling me back when I heard it go WAUGH and saw Control standing behind it and swinging like she had a golf club.”

“It had two faces. I had to get them both.” Her weak laugh sounded like a cough.

“We tried the elevator, and it didn’t do anything and we stayed in the corner here. Another thing came at us, and Control knocked it back. Then we saw the arrow light on the elevator, and you opened the doors.”

“So we go down.” Zelda coughed against her hand.

“What about them?” Russ gestured to the doors. “They’re stuck if we go back down.”

“Can we go get them?” Justin turned to Control.

“If they stay put, they’re fine.” Control was steady on her feet now. “If we have to, we’ll break the machine. McMichaels said everything will go away when the signal stops.”

“What if there’s more of them between the elevator and the machine?” Zelda dropped her hand and moved closer to the center of the elevator. “What if that’s why Eric and Miles didn’t shut it off?”

“Then I swing for the fences.” Control looked at Jessica. “And she makes a run for it.”

“Is there anyone else in the building?” Justin pushed up the sleeves of his jacket and shirt. The women’s energy level was infectious.

“No idea. But two of you can get out in the lobby and get out of the building and call for help. Someone else stays in here in case we can’t open the door outside the elevator.” Zelda looked at Russ and Justin. “You don’t have to come out with us. Just listen for us in case we come running. If we take too long, come back up here for the others.” Another roar croaked from the other side of the doors. It was high off the floor and moving fast back toward the suite lobby. There was silence inside the box for a moment.

“I’ll come with you,” Russ said. “Jessica can stay in the elevator. We drop you two off in the lobby to meet the cops and whoever else to let them know what’s going on.

“Wait, was the lobby all pink when you got back?” Jessica squared herself to Russ.

“Yeah, with the lights and the wind.”

“Then you two have to get out of the building,” Jessica said. “Wherever the light is, the signal lets those things come through. Just like McMichaels said. Don’t stay in the lobby.”

“But the doors are across the building.” Zelda and Justin looked at each other.

“You can stay in the elevator with me or run for it. Your call. But we need to move now.”

Justin swallowed and stared at the floor.

“Let me think about it on the way down.”

“Fine.” Control punched the lobby button. “You’ve got about 20 seconds.”

The elevator slowly descended as a skitter of feet rushed past the elevator frame, much closer to them than their friends hiding on the top floor.


	23. Chapter 23

Seaborn and Mitchell sat behind the white board, tucked in the back corner of the top floor. They hid as much of themselves as possible while watching the traffic of monsters around them. The mostly empty floor, the unfortunate congregation of phones stored here, and the broad space of the building afforded the creatures a wide arena to roam. Hayden sat along the wall with his tie cinched above his injured ankle.

Katherine curled against the wall behind the white board. She had hoped they would be safe in shadow, but the pink light permeated behind the board as well. Her knees stiffened after the mad scramble up the stairs once Hayden was safe. He limped up the stairs, heaving himself up with his hands on the rails. His leg was ragged and bleeding. Seaborn brought up the rear, gently pushing Katherine with a hand on her back.

When they reached the top of the staircase, tiny winged crustaceans swarmed and swooped along the windows. Stubby bear-like creatures propped themselves up on the railings at the edge of the floor along the flue and lashed their tongues at the swarm, yanking back squealing, wriggling clusters of bugs into their jaws. The bugs’ screams mixed with the sharp chewing noises and the grunts of the bear monsters. Distorted yellow pelicans soared overhead, darting into the swarms and curving away with protesting shapes bulging their beaks.

In the corner close to the stairs and opposite the white board sat the box of prototypes inside early package designs. They sang out in unison. The sound was randomly muffled by bright red mantises with primate arms crawling over the box. They skittered on their middle and back sets of palms while their front arms reached out and caressed the other bugs. Heads bent and wings fluttered slightly to receive the hands. They hummed and flowed over the phones. If they saw the people ascending the steps, they gave no hint.

The group clumped together and slid slowly along the tan wall toward the service elevator halfway through the room. Mitchell led the group. He gently moved boxes away from the wall and kept them between the group and the monsters. The deafening ruckus about them smothered any noise they made. Jessica kept a hand over her mouth to prevent any screams from giving them away. Katherine was in the middle of the line.

“Slowly. We have to move slowly now.” She winced from the quick movement up the stairs.

“Is this what you saw in the house?” Seaborn held onto her arm. He saw her grimace when they topped the stairs and hoped to help steady her.

“Not this many at once. The resonator signal is agitating them.”

“What can we do?” Control as ahead of Katherine helping Hayden keep his balance. She craned back to half-whisper. “How did you fend them off before?”

Katherine looked her in the eye. “We didn’t. We had to turn off the machine.”

“Eric can get that done.” Mitchell’s hand stretched along the wall in front of him and touched the call console for the service elevator. “We can go down to the basement and help. Listen, when the elevator comes up, it’s going to ding. It might attract attention. We’ll have to get inside quickly. Be ready to help Hayden and Katherine.”

“Ok.” Control pulled Hayden to her and wrapped an arm under his. Katherine turned and nodded her readiness to Seaborn. Mitchell pushed the button. The circle around the black button lit subtly in the pink air. Mitchell thought he could hear the counter weights ease down the shaft. He definitely heard the elevator lurch and stop well below their floor. Mitchell pushed the button again repeatedly. Sheets of paper flew past, caught in the circulating air. A deep rumble came from behind the elevator doors. Another rumble, slightly higher, answered from further away.

“What’s wrong?” Hayden asked.

“I think there’s something on top of the elevator. It’s not coming up.”

“We can try the fire stairs.”

“That’s a long way down.” Control squeezed Hayden’s arm to turn him toward her. “Your ankle’s bad. Her knee may have given out. We can’t all go.”

“We go behind the board.” Mitchell angled out to speak to the group. “We can then sneak to the fire stairs. Maybe get out of the building.”

“That’s almost 30 floors,” Seaborn said. “If every floor looks like this --” The staircase vibrated from a hard shock. Jessica squatted and spun toward it. The rest froze. Something near the base of the steps scraped against it and tugged it. It let go and barked its disdain. Heavy footfalls move away from it.

“We can at least get behind the board. Come on.” The group shuffled quickly past the elevator. Seaborn heard movement inside the shaft as something turned and slid against the shaft walls. It didn’t have much room to move from the sound. It rumbled downward.

Mitchell made it first to the edge of the board and pulled its corner away from the wall. He walked behind it, hunched over, and slowly shoved out the other edge. He and Seaborn lifted the frame to make a hypotenuse with the building corner, and the others knelt on the carpet, watching the bedlam from beneath the board edge. Animals pounced upon each other with teeth and claws. Shrieks of aggression and agony echoed off the glass. Some creatures were only as big as a dime, but they were part of a roiling colony. A giant jellyfish dipped and floated like a Chinese dragon kite, tendrils filled with panicked creatures. The floor shook with large unseen footsteps.

“Stay here.” Control crept to the far edge of the board and eyed the closet door next to the fire stair door.

“Wait. Hey.” Hayden reached for her wrist, and Control yanked her arm free.

“Gimme a second. I got stuff in the closet.” She grabbed a handful of markers from the board tray and threw them at the center of the floor. A number of monsters turned and stared at the clatter. Control raced out and up to the door. She swung open the closet door toward her. She shoved her arm inside and grabbed a green duffel bag. It flew over her shoulder, and the contents banged together. Control followed the motion of the bag and spun backward to race back to the board.

“OK, we can get back now if we need to.” She unzipped the bag and pulled out aluminum bats and baseballs from her Central Park bug-out bag. “We got stuff to swing and stuff to throw. Who wants what?”

The contents were divvied up. Mitchell held a bat at his side and told the group he was going to try the fire stairs. Telling the group to stay put, he stood and snuck up on the door.

He gently pushed the horizontal bar on the door and peeked inside. The overhead lights were off, but the stairwell was illuminated pink. The door was blessedly quiet. He slid inside the door and grabbed the vertical handle on the other side of it, thumbing the latch lever down. He swung behind the door and eased it back to the frame and released the latch. The sound outside was muted in here.

He rolled the bat handle in his hand and took the first few steps down. He made the landing and followed the interior railing around. He crouched, and his shoes made little noise. His breath sounded loud in his head. The tight acoustics amplified the pulse in his temples. The warmth from the resonator distracted him. He flexed his muscles to fight the sensations in his torso and thighs.

“Knock it off, Andrew,” he mumbled. “Pay attention.”

He cleared the second landing and walked past the door of the floor beneath them. When the frog-spiders first appeared, they all ran to the spiral staircase hoping to get down, but when they saw creatures beneath them, they ran up to the top floor. There was no way they would chance crossing back through the design floor and its pack. He surprised himself by punting Hayden free from one monster. He was on his own now, and that made him crouch a little deeper, move a little slower. His thin-soled shoes slid easily under him despite the traction texture on the edges of the stairs. Mitchell grabbed the railing and continued down, step by step.

A soft chuff of air from below stopped him. He paused, tilted his head toward the open column and squinted. He saw nothing move. He took another step. He held his breath and turned onto the landing. The next chuff was closer. It made no echo. Mitchell put both hands on the landing railing and peered over. Out of the chimney between the stairs leapt a throng of tentacles stretching up and grabbing the railing on a floor above him. Mitchell fell back against the wall.

“Christ!” The tentacles held and pulled. The chuff was louder and closer. He heard clicking. The tentacles rubbed against each other, muscles flexed audibly under the skin. The railings squeaked under the grip. Mitchell put both arms out against the wall and made his way back up the stairs. The tentacles continued pulling the body upward, and the chuffs were more frequent now. Mitchell thought of the siphons on an octopus that took in and shot out water to jet across the ocean floor. If that was the chuff, what was making the clicks? An octopus has a beak, he remembered. At least the ones known to humans. That made him hurry. He turned away from the wall and ran now, not caring about the slaps of feet on the stairs.

He rounded the landing under the door of the top floor. The tentacles reached up here, forming a hollow shaft between the floors. He made the corner and started up when a tentacle slipped through the column and hooked into the air in front of him. He stopped. The tip bobbed at eye level. It reared back slowly before shooting forward at him. Mitchell raised the bat, and the tentacle snagged it. Mitchell’s grip tightened. The tentacle pulled. Mitchell responded and tugged hard enough that the bat bounced off his chest and sent him down a step.

The tentacle squeezed tighter, its tip spiraling up and around the fat head of the bat. Faint purple suckers puckered and adhered to it. Mitchell could feel the tension through the handle. The tentacle yanked it away from him and slowly pulled the bat down inside the column of arms. Mitchell’s hand remained in the air slightly in front of him. He watched the bat disappear inside the arms. Mitchell snuck away from the tentacles and up the stairs. He thought he heard his heartbeat in his throat. He pressed his mouth closed and breathed quickly through his nose. Now he could only hear his pant legs slide together as he stepped up. He put his hand on the railing to prevent a fall, or worse, a racket that would attract attention.

From the column, deep down the stairwell, came the sound of the aluminum bat shattering. Mitchell jumped. The sound continued, and smaller crunches followed. Chewing, Mitchell thought. Some kind of beak is chewing the bat. I should really move now.

He spun away from the tentacles and ran now up the stairs, two at a time. He reached out his hand to grab the door handle as soon as possible. Any second, he would feel the monster grab him and drag him away inside that column, down through the heavy tentacles, and into that mouth below. The mouth that chewed through the bat. What would it do to bone?

“Move! Move!” Mitchell lunged for the handle, slapped his hand on the latch and ripped it open. The others behind the board yelped and clutched their bats. Mitchell turned on his heels, clutched the horizontal bar, and yanked the door toward the frame.

“Don’t slam it!” Jessica whispered. She was up on her feet in a flash. Mitchell stiffened his elbows and shoved his shoulder in front of the door to stop it. It bumped against him but stopped clean. He looked into the stairwell. The curtain of arms remained. No tip curled out of it. He gently returned the door to the frame and lifted the bar softly. The bolt caught the lock. Mitchell backed away in big, soft steps, and then he was behind the board. He collapsed to his knees and then to his butt, thumping on the floor with a gasp. The others circled him with wide eyes, the question unspoken.

“We’re not going that way.” Mitchell said.


	24. Chapter 24

“Maybe we should have taken the stairs.”

Sometime around the 25th floor, the lights flickered, and the elevator stopped with a jolt. The occupants gave a yelp or made moves to steady themselves with outstretched arms. Jessica fell into Justin, and he kept her upright. They all panted slightly and squinted from sporadic pressure in their heads.

“Sorry.”

“It’s OK. Everyone alright?”

A murmur of confirmation fell into silence as they waited. For anything, really. Far away sounds drifted in among their breaths. Some screams. A growl. Another. Their ears rang high between the noises. The elevator whirred back to life and renewed its descent. The number display continued its countdown.

Their approach to the 17th floor was heralded by a long moan. They heard it around floor nineteen, and it only became louder. The sound seeped around the elevator and enveloped it. By the time the display flickered to “17,” they had to cover their ears to block it out. But even through their palms, they could suddenly hear a male voice near the elevator door.

“No. No. No, please. No.” It was flat, the sound of exhaustion. It ended clean when they moved closer to the 16th floor, but the moan continued before dwindling.

Near the 12th floor, something banged against the bottom of the car. Zelda danced away from it with high steps. The others cleared a small circle away from the noise. Control stared at the carpet holding the bat handle in both hands. The bat head hovered a few feet from the floor.

“Come on. Come on,” she said.

The noise returned, followed by another in the same spot. A rush of wings scratched at the elevator floor, then a dull tapping. The bang came once more and then nothing. The elevator continued moving down.

“Yeah,” Control said. She stood back up, let the bat hang at her side.

“I think it was scared of your hair,” Justin said.

“Shut up.”

At the fifth floor, the elevator was greeted by quick taps on the hallway doors. The taps ringed the outside doors, and Russ imagined something crawling on those doors on bony tips trying to get inside. Based on the distance between the taps, it was big. He stepped closer to the back of the car.

At the lobby floor, Russ pressed the button to keep the doors closed.

“Alright. What are we doing?” He looked at Zelda and Justin. She took a few steps behind Justin and shook her head.

“We gotta try it.” Justin took off his jacket and crumpled it into a ball. “When we got here after lunch, we had no idea anything was wrong until we stepped inside the lobby. That means the signals might not reach onto the street. So if we make it to the doors, we should be OK, right?”

“That sounds good,” Control said. She held out the bat head toward him. “Do you want this?”

“Nah,” he held up the ball of jacket. “I can cover up or throw this at whatever is out there.”

“Might be nothing.”

“Or it might be what we heard all the way down here,” Zelda said.

“You staying with Jessica? You coming with me and Russ?”

Zelda lowered her head and blinked. A tear fell from now red eyes. Her hands were intertwined and twisted under her chin.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

Justin turned around and bent to catch her line of sight.

“If you come with me, you’ll get outside. I promise.” He crammed the jacket under his arm and put both hands on her shoulders. “You kick off those shoes, and you’ll get better traction. You won’t break the heel and tumble, and you won’t slip. Hike up the skirt to get the legs pumping.”

“Screw it. I’ll just take it off.” She reached around and unzipped, tugging and wiggling the skirt off to the floor. She pulled the blouse down around her thighs before she kicked each foot behind her to throw her shoes into the corner. She threw a self-conscious glance to Control, who ignored it.

“Better?” Justin asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded her head quickly and cleared her throat.

“Now, we don’t hear anything under us. That’s good.” Justin stepped back and opened his stance to the others. “Russ pushes the button, and we bolt. Whatever you hear or see, you keep running. Run hard. Run ‘til it hurts. I’ll be right next to you.” He pulled her to the center of the elevator box to face the doors. Then he stood in front of her and locked eyes.

“We get outside and try our phones. We know there are call boxes in the park. We go next door, and we tell them to call everyone this side of the port authority, right? This is what we do, Zelda. We get help. They’re counting on us. The whole building.”

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath and raised her chin. She let it out and shifted her weight on her toes, bending her knees alternately. She shook out her hands at her side.

“We’ll knock out the signal so the cops can get in, and we’ll meet you outside.” Russ said. “And then I promise I’ll have lunch with the next idiot who calls us.”

Zelda laughed. It was louder than she expected, and the volume bolstered her. She smiled big.

“Let’s go.”

“OK.” Justin nodded to Russ. He moved his hand over the Open Doors button, thumb jutting out above his fist. “Count of three.”

Justin stepped one foot out in front of him and bent a bit. He put one elbow in front him. Zelda saw and adopted the same position.

“Winner gets coffee next week.” He winked at her over his shoulder.

“You’re on. I only drink ventis.” She grinned and rocked on her toes.

“Here we go. At three, I push the button. As soon as you can get through, run.” Russ said. They nodded. He lifted his chin.

“One.” His chin dropped and raised.

“Two.” His chin dropped and raised.

“Three.” His turned his head and mashed the button. The doors slowly parted and wobbled inside the track. They moved back and reset fully into the frame with a soft clump. The opening was clear. There was pink light but no sound. Jessica and Control flattened against the walls of the box. The doors across the lobby were clear, and the sunlight was distinct on the building across the street. Justin took a deep breath.

“Now!”

He took the quick lead, but she was right behind. His steps clomped onto the lobby tiles as soon as he cleared the elevator column, and her feet made flat slaps.

They made it ten feet.

A thick segmented column with thousands of stout nodules roared from their right, shoving them out of sight of the three in the elevator. Russ, Control and Jessica screamed. The column continued to rush by, slithering and filling the door frame. It was a wall, a giant tube of rough skin and ridges. Far to the left of the elevator column came a single scream muffled as the unseen mouth closed around Zelda and Justin. The giant grunted three times just as the tail slid past the view of those in the elevator. The scream stopped, leaving only the scraping of the beast on the slick tile floor.

Control bumped Russ out of the way and pressed the button for the basement. Russ shouted in surprise before collecting himself and slapping her hand away. The elevator was already dropping. Jessica pressed herself into the corner on tiptoe with her hands cupped around her mouth and nose, keening at a high pitch. Control stepped back from Russ’s wide stare. 

“They’re gone, Russ.” It came out soft and quiet. Control gulped a breath and said it again. “They’re gone, Russ.” She backed up against the wall next to Jessica who continued to look at the door. Russ dropped his hands and stood agape. Control looked to the ceiling of the car.

“We have to help the others now.” She cleared her throat and blinked. She set her jaw and clenched. “We have to turn that thing off.”

The elevator descended at a reluctant pace toward the bottom of the building.


	25. Chapter 25

The red number display switched from numerals to a single letter. Before the car slipped to a stop, Russ again pushed the Close Doors button. He stood slumped with the other hand hanging limp at his side. He didn’t look at the women.

When the elevator halted with a soft dip, Jessica opened her eyes. She had hoped the pink light would be gone when she opened them, its departure announcing the resonator’s deactivation. The light remained. The air moved slightly. She held her hands, tight and symmetrical, to her face, but she did not pray, either for herself or for the others. She instead thought of how far it was from the elevator to the server farm. She had made it from the white board to the elevator doors upstairs.

Almost made it, you mean. Control saved you. One of the monsters had you.

Only because I didn’t have enough space between the stairs and the elevator to get up to full speed. From these doors to the server room is a hefty distance. I can hit my stride. I can make it this time.

You’re telling me that because you have farther to run, the safer you are? Really, Jessica? Seems like you’ll have more chance to be grabbed.

I have to go.

No. You won’t make it. Again.

I can’t sit in here again. I can’t watch the monsters get someone else while I stay in here.

Control’s got it. Russ is smart.

Zelda and Justin were smart.

Apparently not.

That’s horrible.

That’s truth, Jessica. What’s out there is horrible. Don’t go out there. Stay in here. The others upstairs need you to fetch them.

Russ can do it. He can stay here.

I think you want to stay near Control. She has her shit together. She’s going to survive this.

I don’t think any of us is going to survive this.

So why leave the elevator, Jessica?

To get it over with.

“Jessica.”

Shut up. I made up my mind.

“Jessica.”

I’m going. I’m going I’m going I’m going.

“Jessica. Are you ready to work the doors?”

“I said NO.” She opened her eyes. Control was standing next to her, bending slightly to the side to catch Jessica’s gaze through her hair. Russ stepped close to them, hand on hips. He stared at the carpet with the black splotches from Control’s bat.

“It’s OK,” he said. “I can go.” She heard the resignation and snapped out of her fugue.

“No, Russ.” Lifting herself off the wall, she pulled the hair away from her face and sniffed to reclaim her composure. “No, you stay here. You wait for us.”

He looked up and smiled to one side. “It’s my turn.”

“No, I’ll go. I’m fast. I can run.”

“I can run too. I’m fast.” He opened his smile and glanced at the ceiling. “Don’t let this paunch fool you. A big engine under the hood.”

“Please.”

“I’m senior designer. I call the shots.”

“No!” Her hands were now clasped in something like a handshake. Now she was praying.

“It’s my turn.” He put a hand on her upper arm. He spoke with exaggerated calm. “All I’ve done is ride this elevator. The two of you have been out there.”

“And you’ve been under the resonator effect all day.” Control closed in on the pair.

“What?”

“Miles hid a phone in her desk. It was running the resonator signal. That’s what started all this.”

He crouched and met Jessica’s eyes. “He did that? You OK?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” She blinked slowly. Her lips pressed together. She was lightheaded and flushed all day, she remembered. She had been shaky even before the cycles of adrenaline swept in and out as the creatures appeared.

“Good.” He patted her arms. “You stay here. I’m going to have a chat with Miles.”

“Russ.”

“Control and I are going to take turns. First we wallop the machine, then him.”

“You can have the first shot.” Control offered him the bat. He took the handle in his hands and raised the head while tilting his head up a bit.

“Never liked him anyway.” He stepped to the doors, and Control matched him on the other side of the door frame. Jessica stayed put, and Russ turned his shoulders toward her. “Come over to the console. You’ll do the countdown this time.”

Just like upstairs, Jessica. You get to see that again.

Shut up.

I mean, this is the smart choice. You’re exhausted. You couldn’t lift that bat.

I could do it. I could run.

Well cheer up, Jessica. Whatever happens, you still may have to.

She slipped past Control to nestle in the corner with her finger floating in front of the Open Doors button.

“Ok.” Russ popped his neck and looked at the floor display. “Just like before. Count to three, hit the button, and out we go. Ready?”

“Yeah.” Control stood still, staring at the doors. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll count,” he said. He turned to Jessica. “On three.” Jessica nodded.

“One. Two. Th-”

“WAIT!” Control raised her hands in front of both of them and turned to him. “Do you have the card for the server door?”

“Oh, wait a second.” He handed her the bat and pulled out his wallet from his back pocket. He thumbed through the tops of a pressed bundle of cards. “It’s been a while since I used it. I think I --. Yeah, I got it.” He pinched a card and pulled it out from the bundle. He tapped the cards back down into the wallet and moved it back to his pocket. His arm stopped.

“Nah, I’ll leave it here.” He threw the wallet into the corner behind him. It flopped open on the carpet. “I’ve got a lunch coupon in there. It’ll give me extra incentive to come back.” He put the card in his shirt pocket and patted it a few times. “Good thinking. Good thing we didn‘t take the service elevator. It’s further from the servers.” He looked back at Jessica.

“On three. One. Two. Three.”

Jessica dabbed the button, and the doors stuttered before sliding open. The ding echoed off the concrete walls. Control and Russ crouched slightly and stepped forward gingerly, feet just high enough to avoid scuffing on the carpet. Their heads moved close together as they checked the periphery of the elevator door frame. A few dots of black puddled in the hallway. One of the fluorescents flickered, but the pervasive pink light thinned any cast shadow.

“You first,” Control whispered. “You got the bat.”

“Oh, that was your plan.”

He tiptoed and leaned his shoulders out to scan the hall. He saw nothing but more black splotches on the floor leading around the corner to the left and away from the server room to their right.

“Server’s at the end of the hallway. Doors on the right.” He pulled out the card and handed it to her. “You swipe. I’ll swing.”

“Right.” Control turned to Jessica. “Once we’re clear, close the doors and wait for us. If you hear something bad, go back to the top and try to get the others. They might be waiting for you by now.”

“Waiting for us.” Jessica whispered.

“Yeah.” She stepped out of the car, and they were both in the hallway. “OK, let’s go.”

They jogged on their toes to the right and out of sight of the elevator interior. Jessica pressed the Close Doors button and stepped to the back of the box, back and arms pressed against the walls. The hand rail that ran the interior of the car pressed against her back. On everyone else, it was at their waists. She felt very small indeed. 

She put her hands back over her mouth as before and breathed lightly through her nose. He could feel her pulse in her chest and temples. The elevator was quiet. The hallway was quiet. She squeezed her shoulders high up around her jaw, and wedged one foot behind the other tight against the wall. She had no sense of time.

There was a knock at the elevator door. 

Three quick raps. 

Then a voice coming from high up behind the door.

“Jessica? Is that you in there? Can you let me in?”

She opened her hands slightly and moved her head forward.

“Miles?”

“Are you alone in there? Let me in, please.”

“Miles? Where’s Eric?”

“He’s in the server room.”

“Did you see Russ and Control?”

“Let me in. Open the door. It’s weird out here.”

She stepped once away from the wall. Her shoulders remained high.

“Miles. I -- Miles, are you OK?”

“I’m good. I’m great. Look, I’m sorry about this morning. Come on out. We can go in the server room with the others.”

“They’re all in there?”

“Open the door.”

She took small steps to the console and held her hand in front of the Open Doors button.

“Miles?”

“Open the door.” The voice was just inches away. High off the floor. Strong. She had only ever heard him mumble. He sounded different, but well. Not scared or hurt. That was reassuring. She took a deep breath, a combination of relief and hesitant hope, and pressed the button. The box pinged, and the doors slipped open.

Miles stepped into the small box. He was tall now, standing at full height, chin raised. He was naked and wet. His bare feet left gray contours on the hallway concrete, and the elevator carpet stained dark under his feet. She stepped away and thumped into the corner of the elevator. He turned stiffly at the waist and reached the console with ease. Two straight fingers stabbed the Close Doors button. The light of the hallway grew thinner behind him as the doors closed. He turned back to her and grinned with flat eyes.

“Hey, Jessica.” He stepped closer and closer. “I wanted to ask you something.”

In the hallway, the elevator doors gently sealed with a heavy shudder, barely muffling Jessica’s scream.


	26. Chapter 26

Katherine watched the creatures swim around the curve of the window wall toward her corner of the building. They banked at her left, disappeared behind her view of the white board, and appeared out the other side. The smaller animals darted and swooped. The larger ones floated, swinging lazily left and right aloft in the circulating air. They called to another with scratchy vibratos or high, piping trills. They snapped at each other. Some crashed to the crowd in a jumble of teeth and blood.

She watched them with no expression. She had seen this for decades. Even with her eyes closed, her pineal gland observed the predation. She lived always in a grotesque safari. Until last week, of course. Then a stranger with a magic box made it go away in exchange for her reliving the worst three days of her life. The last time she walked as a free woman. The last time she shared an intimate physical moment, followed almost immediately by an intrusive assault. The last time she was a person and not a case.

She lived on the other side of those notes and folders and the facility doors. For once again detailing the deaths and mistakes, she traded recycled air for exhaust fumes and airport noise. She handed in her bolted furniture for a radio that played the songs of her college days and her small rectangular view of the world for giant towers slipping past car windows. She was invited back to the world of random noise and dirty laundry, crying children and long lines, the blessed mundane life she lost to a six-foot engine that created noise and death. 

She was again Doctor McMichaels, and she could walk, as well as her knees would allow, along streets filled with people as likely to cry as they would to laugh, these people who could express themselves without fear of restraint and diagnosis. She was no more deranged than anyone she spoke with. She walked in chaos, and it was wonderful.

Now the machine had trapped her again, hiding behind a thin plastic board, huddled with others in fear for their lives. The only difference between then and now was she wasn’t alone in seeing the monsters. She was no longer insane but now more imperiled. The man next to her was bleeding and hobbled. Another had barely escaped a monster in the stairs. The third was the man who had rescued her from a lifelong imprisonment yet indirectly led her here amid a biosphere of the horrible and the violent, things seen before only through the eyes of corrupted minds. The only proper response was to become mad.

Or, Katherine thought, to get mad.

“Seaborn, I need your help.”

“Yeah, what,” he continued to stare at the parade. He adjusted his kneeling stance slightly toward her.

“Help me throw that box of phones over the railing.” She pulled herself up the corner with her elbows and forearms. She put her weight on her heels and pushed herself up. Mitchell saw what she was doing and stood to help her. She tested her right knee, and it held her weight with her foot flat on the ground.

“What, go out there?” Seaborn stood up behind the board.

“Hayden’s phone broke on the lobby floor. I bet we can get these app phones to do that same. The fewer phones emitting the signal, the weaker the signal. We’ll lose some of them.” She pointed out with her chin.

“Those things are in boxes. We’d have to unpack them all.”

Mitchell stepped into the small huddle. “We don’t have to break them to get out of here. Just condense the field. If we can get all the phones in one place, the field shrinks, right?”

“Maybe not,“ she said. “If we’re getting overlap with the resonator below, the spread of the phones don’t matter. They’re still forming a zone with the resonator in the basement. The whole building might be affected.”

“We have to presume it is. We’ve heard nothing from Eric or Miles. Or the girls.”

“That only means they ran into trouble in the basement. We have no idea what is going on in the floors between.”

“Too risky,” Seaborn said. “ We should stay here.”

“If they can’t turn the machine off, then we have to get out of the building. If we stay here, eventually, we will be dead. They will get us.”

“Hayden, what do you think?” Seaborn knelt next to him. He sat against the wall with his leg stretched out.

“I don’t want to slowly die from some sort of freak-ass infection, that’s what I think. Tell me what the plan is, and I’m in.”

“We pick up the box and throw it into the far corner, away from the elevator,” Katherine peeked around the board edge at the railing where they could hurl the phones. “If they’re agitated by the signal, they might follow it down. Look at those bugs on the box, they’re obsessed with it.”

“They’ll attack us.”

“I think they’re mesmerized. As long as we don’t jostle them before the throw, we might be OK.”

Mitchell stepped to the board edge closest to the box, near the staircase. “Yeah, I’ll try it.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“With that bum knee? No.” Seaborn took off his suit jacket.

“I said I’m going.” Katherine put a hand on his chest and pushed him backward. It was a light pressure, but he gave to it. She gave a hard look.

Seaborn snuck a peek out to the floor and sighed. “You’re the doctor.”

Mitchell and Katherine squeezed at the board corner and gently moved it to allow them both to move past.

“We can go back along the wall until we’re near the box,” Mitchell said. “Then we creep out, carry it to the rail over there, and heave it.”

“Right. If it works, Seaborn can bring Hayden, and we can get down the staircase.”

“I like it.” He rolled up his shirt sleeves.

“Do you want this?” Seaborn held out his bat.

“Couldn’t hurt, thanks.” Mitchell took it and pressed his back to the wall, knees bent, left hand out to his side.

“Let’s go, doctor.”

“Gladly,” Katherine looked out from behind the board and moved next to Mitchell against the wall. Her breath sped up, and her mouth was dry.

“I think this will be good therapy.”

They began to move down the wall.


	27. Chapter 27

The dark puddles increased in number and size as Russ and Control neared the server room. They stepped over and around them, reaching across the hallway to steady themselves on the wall. Their footsteps made soft padding sounds on the concrete, enhanced by the bare walls. An occasional screech rang off the walls from behind them, somewhere far back in the basement.

In front of the tech dungeon doors, about five feet off the ground, shivered a cloud of gray and black. The mass reflected the fluorescent lights in soft highlights. It was a roiling ball of eels swimming in a tight mob. They randomly curled out from the ball and grazed the server doors. The doors carried the vibration of the resonator, and the eels teased themselves with the brief contact. They dipped back into the cloud, agitating the others and building the frenzy. Dry hisses escaped the eels as the pair approached them in response to their proximity. Between the duo and the eels was a fire extinguisher box on the left-hand wall.

The bat rolled in Russ’s hands. Control quietly opened the box and gripped the handle with her left hand. She cradled the end of it with her other hand. She then removed the red safety pin from the trigger and pocketed it. Depositing the ring, she withdrew out the server card and held it out behind her. Russ took it and held it wide away from him. The bat also distanced itself from him. His arms took up the width of the hallway. They drew closer on tiny steps.

Control slowly moved the extinguisher in front of her face, pointed at the writhing ball.

“Ready?” She whispered over her shoulder.

“Yeah.” The bat wavered in his grip. He raised the card about shoulder height. His arm bobbed with his pulse.

“NOW!” Control slapped the trigger tight and blasted them. The ball cracked open with a scream. The eels separated and bounced off the door and the walls and ceiling. Control moved the extinguisher in a tight circumference, hemming the eels together. She shuffled to the edge of the second server door, directing the eels into the back corner.

They thumped off the walls and the floor, the foam weighing them down. Control lowered the nozzle to confine them below her, and Russ slid the card. He pecked the numbers, and the right door popped open. The resonator sound roared out at them now with a rush of wind, and the eels went into a panic. She stepped closer to smother them, aiming for their faces and tails. Russ slipped into the room and leaned the bat against the first server tower.

“Come on, come on.”

He positioned himself behind the door with one hand on its edge and the other flat against it. Control backed into it and gave one more wide burst of foam. She dipped inside the room, dropped the extinguisher with a clang, and joined Russ behind the door. They shoved it back home, fighting the tension of the automated hinges. Without the hollow breath of the extinguisher, the eels’ protest was clearer – a wet flurry of smacks on the floor and the doors. Russ and Control heard the bolt snap in place, and the eel noise was lost under that of the servers surrounding them. Back in the corner of the room, hidden behind Eric’s station and the tower corridors, was the resonator screaming within a tiny cyclone of debris.

They turned and stood against the doors. The walls amplified the combined mechanical din. They retrieved their weapons. Control rolled her arm toward her to look at her elbow.

“You OK?” He had to project with some effort.

“Yeah. I thought one of them might have scratched me, but it probably came from the door. You look a little pale though.”

“This thing packs a whammy.” Russ winced and shook his head. When he opened his eyes, he was staring at her chest. He turned his head away quickly. “Sorry. It’s hard to stay focused.”

“You’re a married old guy,” she shouted in his ear. “I’m not worried.”

“You don’t seem as affected by this. How are you doing that?”

“I think of the one person in the world I never want to be with.”

“That works?”

“Not really, but it gets me mad. Me and mad can get through anything.” Control smirked and turned toward the path leading to Eric’s station. It was too slim for them to walk shoulder to shoulder.

“I think you and mad are inseparable.”

“Why break up a successful partnership? You first.”

“Again?” He dropped his hands and cocked a hip.

“I can spray from behind you, but if I’m in front, you’d hit me with the bat.”

Russ sighed and looked past her through his eyebrows. “Yeah.”

Moving past Eric’s station was simple. The turn to the right and then to the left was met only with an increase in the resonator volume. The walking space between the server towers provided very little space for Russ to swing. He raised it over his head. If something attacked, he could make one big downward chop to defend himself. They passed the cabinet holding the smaller resonators, and the plastic tarp met them on the floor. They softened their steps again.

Elongated shadows danced on the wall opposite the cabinets. They came from around the cabinet corner where the resonator sat. The shadows flickered and undulated in a manner that suggested they were not moving due to the wind. Russ and Control noticed them at the same time and shared a look. They adjusted their posture and edged toward the turn toward Miles’s station.

In the middle of the square space, the resonator howled and vibrated. The tines glowed magenta over the globe, dense and purple with white sparks within. Behind it was Miles’s body, belly down, headless and smeared with a translucent resin that stained his green shirt. The tarp bunched at his bent elbows and around the toes of his shoes. His pants were stained at the crotch. They didn’t even notice it. 

Ringing the resonator, swaying in unison, were four, tall, ovoid masses. They resembled plants. At each base were five tentacles terminating in webbed flippers. The tentacles connected at a stubby sheath under the extended barrel body. Protruding from the center of the torsos were two thin fins pulsing in sync with the resonator. Where the fins joined the bodies, small coral branches stretched. The bodies were topped with a flat starfish where nested stubby puckering tubes and two tall stalks. These were the source of the shadows.

As Russ and Control stepped out fully from the corner, the stalks of each creature turned to them and blinked. The fins contracted and fanned in a clear effort of intimidation. The tentacles flattened onto the tarp, and the things moved toward them. Controlled raised the extinguisher under Russ’s arms and pointed the spout toward the closest of the beings. It stopped. It blinked once. Its tubes quickened their pucker. The other creatures’ did the same. 

It moved forward again. Control squeezed the trigger, and the foam scattered on the barrel torso. The base tentacles curled quickly, and the starfish arms raised to form a crown. The creature stood its ground. Control cut off the blast and kept the nozzle at her eye level stretched in front of her. The eye stalks turned to the other creatures and back to Russ and Control. The foam-spackled creature moved forward again, and the other creatures moved to join it.

Russ moved in front of Control, brandishing the bat. The open space allowed him room to swing if need be. The creatures halted. His eyes hopped from beast to beast.

“Ideas?” He shouted over his shoulder.

“We’re not leaving until we turn it off.”

“Bash the servers?”

“There’s too many, and the power connections are all behind those things.”

His wide glare moved about the room, hoping for something as simple as a big red OFF button. No such luck. The machine continued to howl as the six beings stared at each other, curious and confused. 

“So what now?”


	28. Chapter 28

Katherine and Mitchell gingerly approached the box. He moved from the wall to circle around it. Katherine stayed upright at the wall. They both had their hands palm up and waist high. Silently they communicated to each other. The mantises adhered to the box that they planned to move calmly and benevolently. Slowly.

The bugs gave no notice. They remained in place, exchanging caresses with their tiny human hands and sharing a blissful moan. Their heads rolled slowly. The box was almost completely hidden under their numbers. Random creatures ran or flew past, snatching and gobbling one at a time off the box. Those left behind gave no response to this either. This encouraged Katherine and Mitchell to continue.

He walked wide away from the box. Groups of monsters swam above him, screeching and growling at each other. He ducked his head low to about the height of the box and watched the herds pass by. He saw them approach the box and moved to the opposite side to remain undetected. Katherine turned her head and stiffened upon the wall, saving her knee for the lifting and transport of the box. The high roof above them provided a full view of the traffic. When the majority of the creatures were across the room, Mitchell waved Katherine forward. She tested her knee, and it was held. She bent at the waist and stepped quickly to her side of the box. She knelt. It and the bugs were about an arm’s length away from her face. She closed her eyes but not because of the sight of them.

The resonator signal through each of the phones inside was a physical force. Nausea tickled the back of her teeth and sat heavy in her stomach. She took deep breaths and pushed her tongue against the roof of her mouth to stifle the queasiness. She closed her mouth and inhaled through her nose. Riding the top notes of the signal was the meditative hum of the mantises and the slight scraping of their jaws.

When she opened her eyes, Mitchell’s expression was a wide query. Katherine nodded quickly and opened her palms. They closed in on the box with arms wide. Mitchell had the better view of the mass floating near the ceiling. She cued off his body language and mirrored his speed. Her fingers squeezed between the box and the carpet, and she cupped the corners. She could hear Mitchell whisper from the back of the box.

“OK, on three. One. Two. Easy now. Three.” His side lifted smoothly, and Katherine took the weight of the box on her forearms and pushed with her feet. Her knee scraped inside her skin but bore her well. They were now standing. The mantises were high off the surface of the box and within inches of their faces. She felt the signal vibrate through her. The nausea flashed briefly and subsided, replaced by a swelling warmth in her ribs. Her breath slowed and deepened. Inside her brain, she felt the pineal ripple and swell. Her vision softened. Katherine shoved her head back and to the side but kept her eyes on Mitchell. His eyebrows stretched high, and she squinted slightly and nodded. He titled his head to the side once, and she felt the box shift slightly to her right. She side-stepped with him, and they moved to the railing.

The cloud of monsters curled along the glass across the flue. The bugs were still. Mitchell and Katherine fell into a walking sync, him taking smaller steps. It seemed to her that he was carrying the bulk of the weight, and his height made it difficult for her to hold the box higher to balance the burden. She continued to walk toward the rail. They stepped on papers strewn by the constant wind. A few sheets caught on their calves.

They were within a few feet of the rail now. It was slightly higher than the bottom edge of the box. They would need to lift and gently rest it on the rail. Neither had the leverage to clear it. They’d have to tip the box over and down. Mitchell angled his side of the box toward it. Opening his stride made Katherine respond in kind. She held out her right leg to keep the box level and placed it down by the heel and not on her toes. Her ankle shifted awkwardly, and the knee buckled. She dipped suddenly, and the box smacked the rail. The mantises fluttered in unison, their wings stretching tall, near to Katherine’s face. She angled backward, and the box slipped again. Mitchell bent hard to lean the box into him, but the box was unwieldy, too long to manage alone.

As it slid toward him, the mantis wings caught him across the face, scratching his chin and cheeks. He shook them away and turned enough that the box left Katherine completely. It fell to the floor, and the bugs leapt, rattled by the broken spell. They raced around the box, forming a loose cyclone that swelled to enfold Katherine and Mitchell. They threw up their arms to protect their faces. 

The mantises collided with them. The tiny arms clutched in a panic, grabbing hair and skin and clothes. Katherine yelped and went to her other knee. The new weight of the long bugs made her unsteady. Mitchell kept his feet and tried to pull off the bugs, crying out in frustration. The bug’s grip made him twirl, and he fell further into the cyclone. More bugs descended on him and gripped.

Katherine saw him falter through the swarm and tried to stand up. Her right leg locked in the tight angle and refused to support her. He collapsed, and the bugs on her blouse and hair tumbled to the floor with the jolt. She propped herself on her elbows and used her good leg to shove forward on the carpet. She was below the cyclone and trying to round the corners of the box when she saw the slow arc of the monster cluster drift toward them.

Grazing the ceiling and the exterior walls, the giant jellyfish pulsed their bodies forward. Their thick ropes of limbs stretched and rolled behind them. An array of smaller creatures darted among them alone and in great schools. They chattered and yelled among themselves. Wings and teeth flitted before the translucent giants. They were nearing the top of the staircase when Katherine called out.

“Mitchell, get down! Get behind the box!”

The flying mantises battered him in the tall blur above the box still broadcasting the signal at full volume. The wings flashed about him, obscuring his view. They chirped and clamored upon him, grasping his shirt and pants and tie. Some found their footing, and the sharp fingers gouged his skin for stability. He couldn’t answer without risking a bug grabbing inside his mouth. The possibility of the small hands hanging from his teeth or a long mantis rushing to the back of his throat, filling his mouth and beating its wings against the roof of his mouth, terrified him. In protest, he tightened his jaw and screamed through his clenched mouth. The noise joined that of the resonator and the bugs. It rang through his skull and filled his ears. Because of this, he didn’t hear the slow procession coming closer.

The flurry of the bugs was magnetic. Flat hyena bats peeled off from the overhead crowd and dove for the cyclone, snapping the highest of the panicked bugs. The screams of the bugs were cut short in rows of flashing teeth. The bats opened their mouths wide to howl as they plunged and rose. The cyclone quickly grew more dense. It peppered Mitchell and sent him reeling backward. The bugs on him were further shaken. They sang out in a high tone, forming a chorus. The shrill cry lured more of the monsters above, and now the bats were joined by finned beasts with heads like alligators and bald tigers. Jaws snapped closed just over Mitchell’s head. Katherine flattened to the floor.

“Mitchell! Mitchell!”

One of the monsters clipped him on the back of the neck and continued flying about the box. He cried despite his fear of something invading his mouth, and he spun away from the cyclone. Blood flung across the carpet and into the blur. The smell riled them further. They pounced. 

A scrum of wings and teeth crashed into him and bore him up from the floor. Sharp, jagged teeth split the bugs and stabbed his skin. He curled his limbs inside by reflex and bent forward, further exposing the wound. He screamed as strong jaws split his muscles and bones. He was ten feet in the air above the cyclone and the box and Katherine, twisting amid yelping faces and their acrid breath and the heavy slap of wings.

Katherine called out his name and shoved herself onto one foot before stumbling. She found support on the wall as Mitchell was carried across the span of the top floor. Seaborn ran out from behind the white board with a bat, but his swings didn’t come close to the devouring monsters. He couldn’t distract them from Mitchell. Two of the monsters pulled his arms in separate directions, stretching him out and upward, closer now to the parade slowly moving above. Mitchell screamed again. His blood dropped hard onto the carpet and TV and couch below him, splashing in loud plops. Monsters shook their heads to claim him while others sank their talons into him and hunkered into his chest and legs. Some dug their faces into his neck and growled against him, becoming louder as they tore his skin away. They rose higher still and approached one of the massive jellyfish. Katherine screamed. Seaborn threw the bat, and it flew through the horde and over the rail, falling silently before clanging on the tiles office lobby far below.

The bigger beast, with a protruding jaw, swung Mitchell free from his opponent. The sudden release carried Mitchell in a wide semicircle and into the tendrils of the jellyfish. Their barbs caught on his skin, and the flying monsters quickly abandoned him. He cried with a raw throat, and the tentacles slowly embraced him, piercing him by the dozens and burrowing deep into their nooks. 

Mitchell convulsed as the paralytics seized him. His lungs locked up, and his screams became ugly hiccups. His body spread wide and stiff, forming a flat star within the mass of tendrils. Foam fell from his mouth frozen in a silent cry. His eyes held still. The jellyfish swam on, propelling itself with lazy billows. The parade continued, sliding just under the ceiling and following the interior contours of the high walls.

Seaborn turned to Katherine and ran to the box.

“Come on! Come on!”

Katherine tore her stare from Mitchell inside the tendrils and blinked away wide tears. She wiped her face with her forearm. The remaining mantises settled back to the box, and Seaborn scooped up a corner. She limped away from the wall and bent deep to grab the opposite corner of the box. She pulled it off the floor with a strained shout, and Seaborn followed her gait. 

She lurched toward the rail, crying in anger, and shoved her arms up to clear the rail. Seaborn did the same, and they hurled the box out into the air. It rolled forward, dotted with the red mantises, and the resonator signal made a soft descending scale until the box smacked the floor and split, scattering the small phone packages across the tile. The bugs hovered briefly before landing amid the cardboard and plastic rectangles. A few phones were splintered, and the signal was slightly quieter, but the intensity continued. 

Creatures scurried from their hiding places and crawled toward the spilled phones. Some of the overhead mob tucked their wings and dropped fast to glide above the signal. Katherine and Seaborn watched as they gripped the rail and looked below. They panted in unison.

“Now,” Seaborn said, still looking down. “We gotta go now.”

Katherine peered through her hair, her sight still hazy from crying. “Go where?”

“We gotta try the fire stairs. We can go down past the office lobby and try the elevator from another floor. Before they swing back over our heads.”

Katherine didn’t have it in her to argue.

“Ok. Let’s go.” She straightened up and limped heavy toward the white board. “Let’s get Hayden.” Seaborn slid an arm around her waist and lifted her slightly under the ribs. Hayden stood between the edge of the board and the wall, holding two silver bats.

“Now?” He shouted through the pink wind.

“Yeah, come on.” Seaborn held out his other arm to help him, but Hayden hop-walked out and toward them. He kept himself upright with a bat. Seaborn carried the other. The three of them looked back to verify the floating stampede’s location as they closed in on the fire door. Katherine spotted Mitchell’s stiff silhouette in the arms of the jellyfish.

“One more,” she whispered.

“What?” Seaborn leaned closer to hear her over the echoing signal all around them.

“Someone else is dead because of me.” She inhaled deep and swallowed down more tears. “I can’t go through this again.”

“So let’s get down those stairs and get out of here.” Seaborn gave her waist a slight squeeze to turn her away from the sight of Mitchell. “We get to the basement and tear up that machine.”

“What about the others? Are they dead too?”

“Let’s go find out.” Hayden reached the door and prepared to quietly push down the bar to open it.

“Mitchell said there was something in there.” Seaborn reached the doorframe to lead the way on his two good legs.

“Way I feel right now,” Hayden said as he palmed the bat head. “Bring it on.” He cracked the door slowly and held it open. Seaborn peeked down the stairs and slipped inside. He saw no sign of the octopus. Hayden limped in after and held the door for Katherine.

She was the last to exit the top floor. She looked through the fire door frame. The swarm approached the spiral staircase across the way, a slow mass of horrors with tiny shapes squabbling and crashing into each other. Three or four of the hyena bats launched themselves to the couch and TV, flapping in place briefly before dropping down onto the blood puddles. As the door swung closed, Katherine watched thin, orange tongues protrude from the many faces, licking up the blood of the man who saved her from insanity.


	29. Chapter 29

Her back to the elevator wall, Jessica scrunched low and away from Miles, standing much too close. Fat drops of gel fell from his fingers and ran down his bare belly and legs. It popped onto the carpet, staining it dark. With the light behind him, Miles shadowed Jessica, and his features were dim. She could, however, clearly see his eyes. They lacked reflection and brightness. They appeared unfocused. Cold and plastic.

“Hey, Jessica. I wanted to ask you something.”

His smile crept wide. Even for a feature so rarely seen by his coworkers, she knew its span was wrong. The lips expanded far beyond the edges of his eyes and now pulled around his cheeks. The red interior of his mouth was punctuated by the deep blackness behind his teeth. The rest of his body was perfectly still. Too still. Jessica’s eyes took note of his contours and the strange static of his body. Then she realized as he spoke: His chest didn’t move. Nor his shoulders. He wasn’t breathing. She became aware of her own now. It was fast and shallow. She squinted from the resonator’s pulse twisting through her mind. His head bent deep, placing his chin on the top of his chest, the plastic eyes pointed at her but unseeing.

“Why haven’t we been friends?”

She barely shook her head. Her mouth parted slightly to reply, but no sound escaped. Her knees shuddered, and she pushed harder against the wall.

Miles raised his hands in a rigid motion, beginning with an upward angle of the wrists that pulled the elbows and then the upper arms behind them and toward Jessica. They moved in perfect symmetry. With a wet rubbery sound, the fingers spread straight and far apart. Both pairs of thumbs and little fingers seamlessly slid beyond the limits of the tendons. The transparent liquid dribbled from the tips. The other fingers moved to create equal spacing. Jessica shrank further into herself. The hands, damp and cold, rested on her shoulders. They were strong and spongy. She felt the chill of the moisture spread through her shirt, thinning the fabric. The grip pulled her forward to him. She leaned her head back to retain contact with the wall, her hair bunched against the paneling. 

“Why haven’t we been close?”

His jaw opened too far with each word. He pulled her upward. She lost the weak safety of the wall. Her knees straightened, and her feet touched the carpet only at the tips of her sneakers. His brow angled forward, and his shoulders followed.

“Miles. Miles. Stop.” His proximity made her speak softly. The distance between them continued to shrink. The features of his face were visible in greater detail. His eyelashes were thick and coarse. His pores gaped. From deep in his throat came a hard clicking sound repeating in short bursts.

“Stop.” Her voice was louder now but shaking. Her elbows awkwardly lifted her hands at her sides. One arm bent fully to press against his forearm. Instead of the expected resistance of the bones, her arm instead sank into the skin.

She pushed harder to break his grip before she realized his arm had given way much too far. She saw her arm wrapped in a hook within his. The skin between his elbow and wrist was a pliant tube, wet and freezing. His deformed hand remained on her shoulder, and the fingers on both hands began to lengthen further. The interiors of the fingertips shoved outward, pulling the skin behind with that thick sound. The knuckles spread evenly, trailing the fingertips out and way from the palms. The cold expanded behind her arms and onto her shoulder blades. The thumbs grew over her collar bones and drifted onto each other below her neck. The grip tightened, and Jessica struggled against them.

Virtually off the floor, she found no leverage. She bent her knees up and then out against his legs. He remained in place, but the skin smeared where her shoes slid down his thighs. She straightened her legs, and they pushed into the muscles, again finding no skeleton to stop them. The flesh bunched around her foot and held it. She thrashed her leg, but she was stuck. She could roll her foot within the pink mud of his leg, but it seeped and hardened over the top of her sneaker and the exposed ankle in tiny bubbles and nodules.

“No! No!” She kicked out with her other leg at the air, hoping to rattle loose but daring not to touch his other leg. She threw back her head, eyes shut, and let loose a growling scream that rang off the elevator interior. Miles betrayed no reaction to any of this activity save to slowly draw her to him.

“We should be close, Jessica.”

His mouth opened. The lips protruded in a broad circle, and the teeth receded. Her shoulders curled under his hands, and he stretched his neck forward to wrap his mouth around her chin. His skin was ice cold. It slid over hers in a thick film. Jessica screamed high. 

She thrashed and collapsed her knees to drop. She popped free of his mouth, but he caught her before she could reach the ground. His hands and long fingers pinned her arms against her torso at the elbows, and she leaned hard to the right. Off balance, she stumbled over her feet, and fell to the thin carpet. The elevator floor vibrated against her stomach and thighs.

She pushed against her palms to rise off the floor, but he was on her. One hand grasped her throat, the other had her by the shoulder. He knelt over her hips. Her legs kicked at the floor, one foot losing its sneaker.

“Clllllloohhhhssssuuuuh.”

She turned to see his jaw grotesquely, impossibly, stretch beyond his collar bones. The mouth opened wide at the cheekbones, forming a deep bowl. Miles bent forward and pulled her head to his mouth. His bottom teeth pushed into the nape of her neck. The hand under her jaw pushed it back and up. Jessica strained vocally against his strength. He moved forward on her back and opened his mouth wide to accommodate her head. She was blanketed by his shadow, gel and saliva falling freely onto her back in thick drops. The teeth and upper palate descended into her line of sight, and she shut her eyes. The ridged interior of the mouth rubbed against her scalp. Miles’s lips pursed closed upon her cheeks and between her nose and mouth. A hard suction tugged at her neck, pulling her head upward and inside.

“Nooooo,” she hissed through her teeth. “Nooooooooooo.”

The elevator light dinged behind them. Inside Miles’s mouth, Jessica could hear only clicking from deep inside his throat, a clicking like a pile of panicked insects, and wet sucking sounds. Miles focused on consuming her, ignoring the doors opening behind him. He tightened his hands on her throat and shoulder. She clawed at his face. Her finger caught inside a lower eyelid. The nail scratched down his face, trenching into his spongy skin. She pushed her fingers deeper into him. He ignored it. His teeth slipped around her jaw, followed by the blanketing lips. She screamed one last time, but it was abruptly stopped. A hard ring of pressure gripped the top of her head, turning her slightly to the left inside his mouth. His tongue curled up against her face. A feeble cry escaped from inside him.

A hard shock bent his throat. His head snapped to the side and relaxed the grip on Jessica’s. She fell forward and grabbed air, her forearms thumping hard on the carpet. She curled her head and shoulders down. Miles turned in the direction of the impact right into a second shot crashing into his nose. The aluminum bat adhered, warping his head into a slight crescent. The clicking hastened. His mouth roared, and a third shot on the other side of his neck bent his head backward and facing the ceiling. He reared up off his knees and onto one planted foot. Jessica felt his weight lift, and she scurried forward to the wall. She pulled her feet underneath her and flattened her arms on the side of the box. She rested her head on the wall and looked toward the door.

Seaborn and Hayden stood over Miles. Hayden jerked at the bat embedded in Miles’s head while Seaborn’s bat hovered over his shoulder ready for another wallop. Katherine slipped past Hayden and knelt next to Jessica, her hands pressed against on the wall on either side of her, shielding her from the men.

“Can you move?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jessica panted in a scratched voice.

“Don’t move.”

From behind her, two quick THUNKs echoed in the small space. Miles croaked with each, withering under the assault.

“Need help?” Seaborn’s bat hovered a foot away from Miles’s head.

“Think I got it.” Hayden yanked the bat free from the elongated face with a muddy sound. Maintaining the swing, his shoulders angled to his right. The bat halted briefly behind him before he pulled it back and walloped Miles behind his left ear. The hit turned the stretched face toward Hayden, twisting on the neck beyond a human tolerance. Seaborn came in with a hit near the same spot, and Miles’s head nearly did a full 360. The neck stretched in fat rolls, and the clicking gurgled deep in the throat. His long fingers splayed in the air before him.

Katherine ran a hand over Jessica’s her head to check for wounds.

“Hold on another minute, OK? Keep your eyes closed.”

“What happened to Miles?! What happened to Miles?!” Jessica quickly spied him through the side of her eyes before locking onto Katherine’s face. She covered herself with a shivering arm.

‘It’s not Miles. It thinks it is.” She used a handkerchief to wipe Jessica’s face.

“What is it?!” Jessica peeked over Katherine’s shoulder.

“Just look at me.”

“Did that thing get Miles?” Jessica’s mind flashed to Zelda and Justin, and her heart dropped. “How did you get in here?”

“We got to a lower floor and called up your elevator.”

“The others. The others!”

“If the creatures are still here, they definitely need our help.” She spoke over her shoulder watching the men stand over Miles spasming on the elevator carpet. “We need to go.”

“Ok, let’s get him out,” Hayden threw a golf swing into Miles’s lower chest, wedging him upward onto his feet. Whether it was Miles or not didn’t really matter to him. Not anymore. The bat squirted free with a flick of the handle. Seaborn smacked him high on the collar to throw him back. The men turned as Miles staggered backward. They ducked under his frantic arms.

When he was fully up on his feet, they nodded to each other and cracked him in the chest and ribs, the bats briefly making a violent equal sign. He flew backward and out the elevator door, bouncing off the opposite wall in the corridor. He slipped down to the floor trailing gel on him on the wall. His head bobbed on the twisted neck, and he rolled on his hip to get back up. Seaborn stepped to the side to push the Down button for the elevator.

“Wait!” Jessica was standing near the wall. “Gimme that.” Her voice was a high rasp.

She grabbed the dripping bat from him and without breaking her stride, she stepped out of the elevator and stood over Miles, who was still regaining his footing. Hayden started to follow but was stopped by Katherine’s hand on his shoulder.

She quickly checked the space behind her and reared the bat head through the elevator doors. She palmed the handle twice, picked up her front foot off the floor, planted it wide to the side, and bashed him deep in the crotch. Miles lifted up off the floor before slumping down on all fours.

Jessica stepped aside and set her feet once more. His head was near her knee. His distended jaw dragged lightly on the floor. Jessica threw the bat high behind her, stepped into the swing, roared hard and loud, and bashed him right behind the jaw bone. His head preceded the bat head in the follow through, leaving the body and bouncing down the hallway. Gel speckled the ceiling and wall. The body flew backward against the wall, its hands and elbows flopping heavy. It dropped squarely onto its backside. The knees jumped a few times before the body fell over onto its now empty shoulder. The jittery fingers curled and flexed in smaller and smaller jolts before laying still.

Panting, Jessica stared at the body at her feet and let the bat hang at her side. She turned to the head halfway down the hall, facing away from her. The nub of the neck twitched in the air once and then stopped. The only sound was her deep breathing.

She turned back to the elevator. She shook the goo off the bat head and handed it back to Hayden as she shuffled to Katherine’s side. She caught her breath and tucked her wet hair behind her ears. She cleared her throat and nodded to Seaborn. He punched the button for the basement and watched the doors close. He leaned against the console wall with his shoulder. If he thought about asking if she was OK, he didn’t follow up on it.

Katherine wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into a side hug. She leaned in and whispered in Jessica’s ear. 

“I’ve seen something like that before. It almost got me too.”

“How did you get away?”

“Someone turned off the machine. It went away.”

“What did it look like?”

“It looked like the man it killed.”

Jessica took a deep breath. “Like Miles.”

“Yes.”

Jessica stared at the carpet. “I didn’t know this could happen. I helped make this happen.”

“We all did. It’s what the machine does. It makes us feel good, and then it kills us. I thought I could help control it. Just like before.”

Both women both raised their eyes to the number display, quickly counting down as they neared the tech dungeon and the mindless, violent machine that dwelled within it. 

Hayden leaned his bat on the wall and saw Seaborn do the same. The resonator was still hitting them hard. They were ashamed at the thoughts rolling in their heads in this small room with the two women. They avoided eye contact with each other and tried to collect their breaths.

Katherine gave a deep sigh. 

“I was wrong then too.”


	30. Chapter 30

Seaborn stepped out of the elevator first, the bat at a 45-degree angle in both hands. Katherine and Jessica followed with Hayden wielding his bat. There was no discussion on the way down as to how their departure would unfold. They all wanted to just get on with it.

The resonator roar welcomed them to the basement hallways. As they turned toward the right, Hayden walked backward and slightly to Katherine’s side. Behind the group, from the maintenance sectors of the basement, echoed the squabbles of unseen monsters.

They approached the last turn in the corridor. Seaborn held up a hand in front of Jessica and stopped. He flattened his back along the wall and leaned out toward Hayden.

“Let’s say there’s no sign of them in there. What do you want to do?”

“I’m more worried that we’ll find them hurt.” Hayden backed up until he was in front of him.

“All we have to do is turn off the machine,” Katherine said over Jessica’s shoulder. “The creatures will disappear, and we can help them. Whatever we see in there, we turn off the machine first. That’s the priority.”

“Is there any way to do that out here? Cut out the power maybe,” Jessica slipped her shoulder between Seaborn’s and the wall.

“No, the server room houses all the building power. The only other way would be to get outside.” Jessica curtly described the initial elevator ride with Zelda and Justin on the way down. Going outside seemed unlikely. “But we can maybe use the fire suppression system. Didn’t you say you once shut down the resonator with an extinguisher?”

“Yes,” Katherine said.

“OK, that room has an overheard system designed to protect the servers. It’s not water. It’s a cold foam system. It’s freezing. Literally. If anyone’s in that room, the system shock would be lethal. We need to see if they’re in there before we cut it on.”

“Can we yell for them at the doors?” Jessica asked

“They wouldn’t hear us over the machines in there even without the resonator. We need to look for them.”

“It’s not safe,” Katherine said. It was louder than she intended.

“Russ is in there,” Jessica said.

“Control’s in there,” Seaborn said.

“They might be in there,” she said. The three looked at each other. “I’m sorry. But we can flip a switch and stop this now. That’s right, isn’t it?” She looked to Seaborn.

“Yeah. Yeah, there’s a manual control outside the doors. For testing and overrides.”

“Please. I’m sorry to ask this. But if we go in there, we might not come back out. And the resonator could still run.”

Seaborn looked to Hayden. Hayden looked down the hall behind them. The violent clamor continued somewhere not that far away. Seaborn turned back to Katherine.

“Ok, we –“

“We’re going to look for them first.” Jessica was at her full height next to him. Seaborn was willing to argue the point, having accepted that Katherine was right. But his mind flashed to the elevator doors opening and seeing the Miles thing on top of her. He didn’t have the stomach to tell her no. Then he thought if she was willing to move toward danger again so soon, he was even less willing to argue her down.

“We move quick,” he said. “There’s not much room to move around in there. They’ll either be in plain sight or they won’t be in there. Two of us can run in, and the other two stay at the switch. Deal?”

Katherine chewed her lip. Hayden continued to face down the hall toward the elevator.

“Whatever we’re doing, let’s do it now,” he said.

“OK. Let’s go.” Katherine put a hand on Jessica’s shoulder. She made a test of her right knee, and it continued to hold. “Seaborn and I can stay outside, and you and Hayden check for the others. One bat per pair.”

“Sounds good,” Hayden said. Jessica nodded as well.

“Alright,” Seaborn said. He held up his server door swipe card. “Let’s go.” 

He lowered the bat, stood off the wall, and turned the corner with a quick stride.

The eels had him.

Seaborn screamed amid the swarm, lost in flashes of teeth and tails. Red sprayed onto the concrete walls. His bat clanged onto the floor and under his feet. He stepped on it and rolled his ankles, dropping hard to the floor. Hayden swiveled and charged. He swung just over Seaborn, but the eels avoided the bat with sudden twists.

Seaborn flailed on his back, gurgling and clawing at the mouths on his face and throat. Bits of skin flew out of the mass. His legs thrashed on the hard floor, streaking the concrete black where his heels slid. Hayden swung again. Again he hit nothing. Seaborn made a retching gasp, and a spurt of red soaked Hayden, pushing him backward. The eels appeared at first to be shrinking in length, and Katherine realized they were burrowing inside Seaborn. His hands straightened into the air, and his body convulsed. The eels slipped down his throat and under his ribs, wrestling each other to eat from the inside. 

Jessica was frozen. Katherine looked down the hall and saw the air around the server doors was clear. She shoved Jessica by the shoulders past Seaborn and down the hall.

“GO! GO! GET IN THE ROOM!”

Hayden swiped at and squinted through the muck on his face. Seaborn’s limbs bounced on the floor, and his torso writhed about with jerking protrusions under the clothes. The eels outside had nestled around Seaborn’s face, continuing to ignore the others. The women were halfway down the hall now.

“HAYDEN!”

He shook his head like a soaked dog and heard the blood and skin smack on the walls around him. He grabbed the second bat and turned toward the server room. He got five feet and turned back. The door card was near Seaborn’s blanketed head. Hayden knelt and stretched, clawing it with shaking fingers. He snagged it just as an eye dropped from between the tails sliding on Seaborn’s head. Their feast sounded like the stirring of a pot of thick, wet noodles. Hayden rose as he ran to the women, and he slid the card in the reader. The display lit up, and he smeared the number pad with Seaborn’s blood. The door popped open. Katherine shoved Jessica inside, and Hayden followed close behind, giving one last look to Seaborn.

Even from this distance, he could see the body was much thinner. His ribcage was exposed under the open shirt. The eels hissed and flew at each other above and around the body. Hayden thought he saw a limp hand flex purposely and hoped he was wrong. He stepped back into the server room, and the doors closed shut, leaving the monsters to their meal.


	31. Chapter 31

Katherine threw up.

She flattened a hand on the back of the doors and bent toward the corner behind her. Jessica could barely hear the noise with the server towers and the resonator screaming in the back of the room. Katherine tried to tuck her hair to the side, but the circulating wind tossed strands back in her eyes. Frustration mixed with embarrassment atop of her nausea over Seaborn’s demise. She had held it together long enough to get them in the room and safe behind the doors. It could happen now. It erupted with anger.

Seaborn and Mitchell had freed her from additional decades of isolation and medicated stupor. They believed her, worked up evidence to gain leverage in her favor, and lifted her out of an asylum and into a world of optimistic care. It resulted in their slaughter by the monsters which had haunted her all these years. In Kingsport, they were visible and antic. But they were intangible. They could hurt no one. Anyone in contact with her was safe. All the clinicians, researchers, and doctors – anyone hoping to use her infamy to stack their resume – could walk around her free from harm.

Not so for these two men who reached out to her. The sphere of chaos in which she existed had grabbed them. Killed them. Once more Katherine was party to the unearthly deaths of kind men. She told herself she would gladly return to her white sterile room if it could bring them back. Immediately, she told herself she wouldn’t. That’s what sickened her. That’s what reduced her to this pathetic state. She emptied her guts and blinked away tears. Then she realized she was again in the room with a Pretorious machine, and she threw up what little was left until she was hyperventilating, gasping and clawing at the doors and towers for stability.

Jessica grabbed her and eased her to the floor, leaning against a metal tower. Katherine sat and gasped, eyes slammed shut, head shaking slowly in denial. Jessica knelt and placed her hands on both sides of Katherine’s face.

“Look at me, Katherine!” Jessica had to shout to be heard. “Come on, we’re almost there!”

Hayden walked up the thin pathway. His wounded ankle seeped through the tie used as a tourniquet. He ignored it as best he could. The fire stairs made for hard movement, but it was worth the pain to move down them without incident. Whatever Mitchell had seen there had moved along. They cleared the stairs into a lower floor slowly but safely. They called up the elevator and heard Jessica screaming when she was still three floors away. When it finally arrived and opened its doors, he, Katherine, and Seaborn were willing to charge through an entire building’s worth of creatures if need be.

Seaborn had stayed with him as Mitchell and Katherine moved the box of phones. He had herded the others up the spiral stairs when after the monster snagged Mitchell. He had shown a resolve that Hayden admired all the more for its loss. He took the lead in the hall because he was armed and uninjured. Neither was any help to him. Mitchell was unhurt at first, and he was dead too. Zelda. Justin. What about Control and Russ? Were they just up ahead? Were they in danger? They could be hurt and vulnerable. They needed to get around to Miles’s desk now. They needed to get to the end of this. His impatience was fed by a need to hit back. He couldn’t save Seaborn. Maybe nothing could. That thought helped a little. Very little.

He turned to the women. Katherine was back on her feet and still shaking her head to Jessica whose mouth was at her ear. They held hands. He couldn’t hear them, but he could tell Jessica was insistent about something. Katherine was losing the argument.

“You have to leave.” Katherine yelled at her.

“Go out there?” Jessica said. “You think it’s safe out there? There is no ‘safe.’ We stick together now.”

“I can’t watch anyone else die.”

“We stick together, and you won’t.” Jessica put a hand around her and subtly turned her in the direction of the resonator. “We have a bat and other tools in here. Let’s tear that thing up. You get first crack.”

Katherine rolled in her lips and nodded. They caught up with Hayden, and Jessica pointed her chin ahead of him. They walked toward Eric’s station and turned right. The wall was close ahead, and before they turned the corner to the left and the resonator, they saw the dancing shadows. Hayden peeked around the corner and saw the tarp in stiff bunches and stained black. The three slid across the face of the cabinets and stopped as the towers ended. Hayden looked back at the women for a collective deep breath before they advanced. Katherine and Jessica squeezed hands. Miles choked the bat. They walked forward.

Katherine froze. The resonator stood blazing in pink and purple in the middle of the open corner. It was smaller than she remembered, but it was intact. The one she encountered years ago was hastily cobbled together after Crawford smashed it in a futile effort to save Pretorious. She shivered at the sight. Her memory raced through each instance she shared space with the original: the rush of the pineal and the libido; the intimate encounters with Crawford and Pretorious‘s assault; Bubba’s initial injury and later his death; the machine aflame as the dragon fought itself; and its death peal as she leapt out the window and the house exploded behind her. Her knee wobbled, and Jessica’s strong grip kept her upright.

Slightly to the left, Miles’s body splayed on the floor. It laid exactly the same way as Crawford’s, decades ago. A grotesque afterthought. On the opposite side of the machine from the body, enough in front of it to cast shadows toward them was one of the vertical, stout beings. Its fins inflated and shrank with rhythm to the resonator, and its crown of head tendrils waved lazily. There was no way of knowing if it was aware of them.

Behind the resonator, partially obscured by the globe and tines, the other creatures huddled near the far wall. Their anatomical symmetry made it difficult to discern which direction they were facing. The limbs wavered, and the bodies slightly swiveled on the tentacled bases. The wall behind them was blacked by their shadow, denser and sharper than those seen as the three approached the corner.

“I don’t see them,” Hayden spoke over his shoulder. “We should get out and hit the switch.”

Katherine was mesmerized by the resonator. It sang in her head, the memories of the Pretorious house blurred in a warm cloud. Her palm was sweaty in Jessica’s hand. The vomiting earlier weakened her dramatically, and she could barely fend off her surrender to the wavelengths. Jessica’s other hand clasped her forearm and tugged her backward gently. The contact made Katherine resurface, and her eyes moved from their hands and up Jessica’s arm to her face. Jessica had stopped moving. Hayden noticed it too and paused next to her. Jessica stared wide-eyed past the nearby being, past the resonator, past the huddle behind it. Hayden crouched to put his head near hers and followed her look. He barely caught his scream.

The winged creatures had opened their circle. They parted; the two closest beings coiled to the side, apparently having seen the humans across the room. They paused on their side of the resonator and their thin coral branches oscillated, silently communicating thoughts undecipherable to man. Behind them and against the wall, slumped, and now exposed to full view in the harsh pink light were Russ and Control, merged bilaterally into one naked body.

The left arm and leg were hers, the right his. The unified chest displayed the crush of bones and skin to simulate the symmetry of the human form. But Russ was a foot taller than her. She had been stretched at the ribs and neck to match his proportions. Her kneecap and hip had been dislocated to force the leg to reach the floor for the new form to stand. The arms hung limp at the sides. His genitalia had been crudely stuffed inside her after it was detached. There was no sign of their opposing original limbs.

The heads were joined at the interior cheeks, with the noses shoved against each other. The slack mouths slightly overlapped and showed two full sets of teeth with tongues extending just past the lips. His stubble gave way to her smooth, sharp jaw, and her streaked hair waved slightly over his scalp. The combined head rested against the wall, and the wide eyes of different colors stared straight up at the ceiling. As Jessica cupped her mouth and hitched repeatedly at the shoulders, she saw those eyes roll slowly in her direction. Then they blinked out of unison. Jessica unleashed a scream that eclipsed the noise from the resonator and the servers.

The alien near to them turned at the sound. The distorted human on the wall slowly raised Control’s arm, the one closest to them, the fingers bent but reaching toward Jessica for mercy. Instead, she ran, still screaming. Still holding onto Katherine, Jessica wheeled her around and after her. Katherine’s leg snagged on the tarp, and her knee twigged. Only Jessica’s pull kept her off the floor. Hayden filled the pathway between them and the alien, the bat extended before him. The alien continued to turn but remained in place. The others behind the resonator seemed content to keep their positions.

The mangled body behind them made short shuffle steps away from the wall, the arm still outstretched, the eyes rolling under the eyebrows. Any sound made by those pathetic mouths was smothered by the roar of the machines. Hayden hopped backward a few steps before spinning around to follow the women. They yelled at each other in front of the doors. Jessica wiped away tears with the back of both hands.

“But the things are still out there!”

“We have to hit the switch, and it’s outside!”

Hayden held up a hand between them and glanced back toward the resonator. As he turned back, he saw Control’s fire extinguisher on the floor. He jerked it off the floor by the handle and leaned in toward the others and yelled.

“One of you hit the switch, I’ll hold off those things outside with this.”

“I’ll do it.” Katherine took the extinguisher forcefully. “Jessica can stand at the switch, and you can protect her if they get past me.”

“You’ve got a bad knee.”

“And you’ve got a bad ankle. Look at her. Do you want to send her walking toward them?”

“I can do it,” Jessica shouted. Her face contorted in sniffles and swallows. 

“No.” Katherine froze Jessica with a finger pointed just under her chin. “I’ll do it.”

Hadyen tucked his head next to Jessica’s ear. “All you have to do is push the button marked Manual Discharge. Keep your finger on it. The extinguishers will pump everything into the room.”

“How do we know if it worked?”

“The pink light and the noise will be gone, right?” Jessica nodded and looked to Katherine. She clutched the extinguisher and stepped back from the door. Hayden wrapped his hand around the door handle and set himself to pull it open. The women nodded. Jessica crouched behind Katherine. He swept open the door, and Katherine sped out, extinguisher held in front of her face.

The eels flailed at Seaborn’s body. They had moved to his arms and legs, and their mouths anchored them while the tails waved above them. Blood pooled under him. The white of his skull showed through pieces of scalp and hair. Katherine charged toward them and stopped short in a wide stance. When the first eel noticed her and spun around on an invisible axis, Katherine squeezed the trigger and sprayed them. They howled and scrambled atop each other. Seaborn’s left shoulder jerked up off the floor as the eels inside him took on the mindless frenzy.

Hayden readied his bat and stood between her and Jessica, who was near the end of the hallway. As the doors slowly closed, she flipped open the control box and stood on tiptoe to read the labels. She found the Manual button, waited for the doors to clang shut, and stabbed it with her index and middle fingers. Lights popped alive next to her hand and over the doors. From behind the doors came a loud whoosh. A row of five lights awoke above the Manual button. As she held the button, one light turned off. She kept her eyes on Katherine.

The eels abandoned the body and spread across the hallway, first to the opposite wall then slowly toward the ceiling. Katherine sprayed in wider arcs and took a few steps backward. The extinguisher grew lighter in her hands.

“How long?” She yelled over her shoulder to Hayden.

“Maybe a minute! Depends on how the machine responds!” He stepped closer, bat held high. The extinguisher sputtered. Katherine walked forward again and cast a smaller arc.

“Come on! Come on!” Her fingers and hands ached. The extinguisher coughed dry twice before spitting out more spray. The eels screamed out louder, now in anger instead of pain.

“Katherine, move back!” Jessica screamed past Hayden. Three more bars deactivated.

“No! I can keep them away!” She tightened her grip, spiting the pain and the diminishing foam. The eels inched closer above her and skimmed just above the floor. She raised up on her toes as the eels snuck into her peripheral vision. As she put her weight on her right foot, the knee gave way, and she fell flat on her hip and elbow. The spray coated the wall near her, and the eels surged forward. Katherine cried out and redirected the extinguisher. The eels paused.

She stayed on the floor, leaning back, her arms extended and hands higher than her head. Her arms swooped right and left to fend them off. The foam skipped and resumed. Then again. The eels curved under the high arc and gained ground near Katherine’s feet. She pulled back her legs and balanced on her left knee while keeping her other leg stretched to her side. She dipped the extinguisher spray down to cut off the approach, and the eels above curled along the ceiling and down toward her.

The extinguisher died. The hissing wall of eels crashed down upon Katherine. She screamed and curled into a ball, forearms covering her ears. Hayden dashed over her, the bat swinging wildly and barely cutting through the dozens of swimming monsters. Their momentum threw a number of them into him, knocking him backward and forcing him onto one knee. Eels circled in wide orbits. The bat finally made contact with one, clobbering its head squarely and sending it flopping to the floor. He kept swinging, and the eels opened their clusters, leaving him only air to strike. On his follow-through, they pounced onto his wrists and back. A few lunged for the thin skin on his neck. He squeezed his shoulders to either side of his head and ducked. His arms followed his shoulders upward, and the bat hovered uselessly over his head.

Katherine was surrounded, the tails radiating out as tiny teeth chewed through clothes and accessible skin. She bundled up as best she could, but her weak knee wouldn’t bend, leaving the ankle exposed. Eels latched onto her there and gravitated toward her screams. They swirled around her face. She shook her head violently. They clamped down on her hair in thick strands, tearing out tiny mouthfuls as she yanked away. They snapped at her fingers and the back of her hands and burrowed under her elbows. She screamed in equal measures of pain and protest. The eels responded with high squeals and hisses. Her hands over her ears barely muffled the noise. Their teeth snapped and ground on her. Her clothes ripped where they attacked.

She shoved her good leg against the floor, pushing herself toward the wall. She rolled up on her elbows and threw her back against the wall. They couldn’t slip behind her, and the cloud thickened around her face and hands. She continued to push with her feet, lifting her slightly off the floor, leveraged by her one strong leg. Her eyes were shut. She couldn’t see the blood flicking onto her clothes and the floor around her. But she could feel it hot and slippery on her fingers. It dripped onto her face, enraging the eels further. 

She screamed in futile resistance. It reverberated in her skull, bound by the palms on both sides of her head. It was the only defense that remained for her. She sucked in air through her teeth and cried out, louder and louder, at the flurry around her and the increasing, random agonies. When her wracked lungs were spent, she gasped again and ripped the sound through her throat, shaking her ribs and shoulders. With each cry, her fingertips dug deeper into her scalp, competing with the sharp pain of the flashing eel teeth.

She shuddered through the ragged end of another bellow when something gripped her shoulders. She thrashed in the grip, the scream quavering as she moved. She scrunched her body together as much as possible and prepared for another cry.

“Katherine! Katherine, stop!” Hayden’s voice barely pierced her hands. He pulled her slightly forward and pushed her back against the wall. The thud shocked her, and she broke her posture. Her hands leapt from her head, and her eyes popped open. The world flashed through starbursts in her eyes. Hayden’s face was close to hers. He was bleeding and splotched. He was also smiling.

“It’s over! Katherine, look at the light! It worked!” The air was no longer pink but dull gray from the concrete. The air was still. She stared at him until the meaning permeated. Jessica bounded to her side and knelt. She gently pulled Katherine’s arm straight and looked at her wounds. Katherine followed her arm with her eyes and saw the tears and gashes. Her blood dripped in soft splats onto the floor. Her head lolled atop her wildly expanding ribs pulling in breaths by the handful. Seaborn’s body remained, still and shambled, down the hall to her right.

“You stay with her, I’m going to check for a phone signal.” Hayden dragged the bat off the floor and jogged down the hall, past Seaborn and around the corner. 

“Can we check the server room?” Jessica yelled behind him.

His footsteps stopped, and he yelled back. “No, we have to vent it first. It takes about five minutes. Then we can unplug everything.” The voice grew louder, and his head dipped around the corner. “You two gonna be OK for a minute?”

“Yeah,” Jessica said. She took Katherine’s hands and watched her eyes. “I’ve got her.” Hayden slipped away, his heavy footsteps clopped back toward the elevator. Jessica inched closer on her knees next to her. “You and me.”

Katherine gave no response. Her breath rocked her back and forth. Her eyes were wild. Her head began moving quickly, dipping and rising as well as moving side to side. A shoulder flinched. She squeaked softly.

The eels were still there, floating above the floor, spread out behind Jessica in a lazier flow. They collided gently. The agitation eased, and their motions smoothed to an easy drift among themselves and through the wall across the hall. Jessica couldn’t see them. The eels didn’t see her nor could they see Katherine. But she perceived them perfectly, more so now in a clear light undiffused by a rose tint. They were sharper in focus. Every scale and shimmer of color stood out.

The machine was once again off, the danger to the survivors now passed. But for Katherine, the traffic of the monsters continued. They were with her again. The app that dispersed them and made possible her entrance back into the world was gone. When they turned off the machines connected to the resonator, her personal wave device fell silent too, with nothing to dispel the constant movement of the beasts seen only by her. Her brief excursion to normality was over, punctuated by death and horror and the absence of hope.

Katherine closed her eyes. The creatures were still there.

She ducked her head and silently shuddered. The shaking started small before becoming stronger and quicker. They melded into one tight clench, and her body rose off the wall and leaned forward. Jessica put her hand on her shoulder, and Katherine’s tight curl relaxed. 

She opened up full, head to the wall, mouth wide and round, teeth edging past her lips, and after she finished drawing in the air, she pushed down on her lungs and expelled a cavernous, mournful cry that rang off the cold walls.


	32. Chapter 32

Phone reception was restored immediately upon the deactivation of the resonator. Hayden contacted emergency services from the elevator as it rose to the lobby.

A similar call was placed from the 12th floor, from an accounting office, by a secretary who had locked herself in a closet. When the sounds outside her door vanished, she crept out of the storage room, ran to her purse, and made the call. Pieces of her coworkers were strewn on the floor, and first responders found her back inside the closet, hiding behind stacks of copier paper boxes.

On floor 17, three people managed to stay alive in a women’s bathroom. One lost an arm and was found in progressive shock. He had been dragged under a sink counter by an intern on the first day of his job and his pregnant supervisor. She suffered no injury to the fetus, and the baby was born eight days after the initial due date, small and pink and loud.

Responders went floor by floor via elevator and staircase to secure the building. The absence of the resonator field removed all traces of the creatures. All that remained were the bodies and their ejections. Blood coated walls and floors on virtually each level of the building. The 14th floor was packed with an annual gathering of political volunteers in preparation of the upcoming municipal elections. None survived. Some had been trampled in the panic and left vulnerable to the monsters.

Some of the almost 250 people inside the building were never seen again. Dozens of fliers asking for information on their disappearances were posted on light poles and inside storefronts for blocks in either direction of the offices.

Via a loaned Fourth Eye phone, the dental offices of Doctor Howard Brayson were also attacked. Outside the master field of the Mitchell building, the signal was limited in broadcast power, but nonetheless allowed for the crossover of a few beasts. They were restricted to the room wherein the phone stayed – Dr. Brayson’s personal room – and caused slight damage to the office but no injuries.

The body of Andrew Mitchell was found lying on the lobby floor of the Mitchell offices. Coroners determined he had been dead some time from paralytic asphyxiation before his body had fallen approximately four floors.

Jessica and Katherine were found on the basement floor, upright and leaning on the wall near the elevator. They were escorted to the elevator and out the lobby to separate ambulances. A fleet of emergency vehicles had claimed the intersection of 63rd and Fifth Streets, effectively shutting down street traffic for the entire block.

Katherine was sedated and treated on-site for abrasions and punctures and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, a two-mile shot straight up Park Avenue, on the same side of Central Park. Jessica was delivered to Lennox Hill Hospital, half the distance up Park. They were kept overnight. The Amfortas Clinic was contacted later that evening, and they likewise contacted Dr. Reiner. He and Doctor Waid rendezvoused in the lobby of Mount Sinai and stayed at Katherine’s bedside in alternating shifts.

Jessica visited Katherine upon her release, and it was there they gave their statements to detectives. Katherine was transferred not long after to the Amfortas Clinic for continuing treatment. Jessica refused to leave her and slept on the couch in the clinic suite. After a few days of observation, Hayden returned home after receiving attention for his ankle wound, and he was given a spectrum of antibiotics to treat peculiar skin deterioration caused by unknown bacteria. The damage spread unabated to his femur before the end of the year, resulting in an amputation above the knee. 

In securing the building, officers searched the server room and found the distortion that was Russ Lawrence and Olivia “Control” Reynolds. It was dead of hypothermia and asphyxiation from exposure to the fire suppressant. The body was quickly retrieved from the Mount Sinai morgue by representatives of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The body and the resonator have since resided in study on the campus of Atlanta’s Emery University.

The official investigation was aided by video found within the digital camera on the top floor of the Mitchell offices. The tape began with an interview between Katherine and Mitchell which was interrupted by a loud argument from two floors down. The camera was left running. It recorded everything, running until the batteries died four hours after the resonator signal spread throughout the building for approximately 47 minutes. The last footage was a still shot of the glass wall as officers searched for survivors and bodies. The video was passed along to CDCP staff.

A massive class-action suit filed on behalf of the building occupants decimated the Mitchell estate, requiring near total liquidation of his property before it could be disbursed through his will and trust. The interior Mitchell tower inside the building was dismantled, leaving the penthouse atrium barren. The building was itself sold for a relative bargain for its location and scoured to the drywall to remove all traces of the incident.

Hayden Crandle used his lawsuit damages award in renovating his home to accommodate his new disability and create a freelance IT service.

Jessica Howell used her piece of the damages award to move across the Hudson to New Jersey where she now owns a condo. She married three years later. She makes regular visits to Katherine.

Dr. Katherine McMichaels remains a patient of the Amfortas Clinic, now owned by Columbia University. She receives continuing care from doctors Waid and Reiner, who is an active consultant on her case. It’s believed research on her condition will lead to a new branch combining endocrinology, neurobiology, and psychiatry. She was assigned a pseudonym in light of media coverage that revived her “Arkham Slaughter” infamy. The offices of the Salem district attorney and the Kingsport facility continue to refuse comment.

Katherine has undergone a battery of tests and cycles of minimal medications to relieve her symptoms. Progress is slow and cruelly incremental. She never leaves the clinic walls. The only difference between where she was and where she is the amount of guilt she bears. The monsters are constant. They will swim in the air, feeding and screaming, long after she, and we, are gone. She closes her eyes every night, and they swim in her awareness long after the room has left the daylight hours and fallen quietly into darkness.


	33. Chapter 33

Mrs. Brownlee,

This is a letter of apologies.

I apologize first that it has taken me so long to write to you. Please do not think this was intentional procrastination. Nor was it a matter I ever let slip from my mind. Every day for the past 34 years, I have been aware of my obligation to you. Just as I have never forgotten my obligation to your son.

Upon my initial incarceration, I was constantly tranquilized, initially by doctor’s orders and subsequently by court decree. During and following my trial, I had virtually no perception of what transpired around me. For those first months following Buford’s death, I was physically unable to communicate with anyone in a significant way nor them with me. As medications were cycled in and out of my system, I became lucid enough to acknowledge the events of those few October days and my level of participation in them.

I remain horrified by what I remember and what I have learned. Despite the conclusion of the facility staff and the district court, I am able to fully comprehend and speak to my actions. I acknowledge my grave failures in judgment that led directly to your son’s death. If what I write next is to have any weight, you must know that I am completely cognizant of what transpired that day and of the full burden that rests upon my heart. This leads to the second apology of this letter, the more important one.

Mrs. Brownlee, I apologize for your son’s death. Were it not for me, he would have seen the next day’s sunrise and that of the next day and the next and all the days he was destined to live. What happened in that house was surely not the intended fate of such a man as your son, for he was good and strong and noble. He was clear of vision and purpose -- qualities that made him an excellent officer and, I’m sure, a beloved son. If I can say anything of comfort, let it be that his death was a cause of his instant desire to save the lives of myself and Crawford Tillinghast.

What made him such a good man was precisely what I lacked in those few days. I intentionally endangered the people around me – despite Buford’s clearly stated objection – and as a result of that willful rejection of resolve, people died. Including your son.

Mrs. Brownlee, please believe me when I say that I mourn him now as strongly as I did then. Believe me when I say that no diagnosis, treatment, or therapy can dilute the sorrow I have for your family in your loss. I carry in totality the responsibility of my actions and the diminishment of the community, as well as my right to participate in it by his death.

Having recently seen the transcripts of the testimony by the coroner and Detective Jordan Fields, I can attest to the findings of the court in regards to Buford’s death. I in no way dispute the progression of events as described by them. I do not nor will I ever seek to amend the official timeline. But I do want to tell you what no one else can: How we spoke to each other and what he did for myself and Dr. Tillinghast.

I met your son in the parking deck of the Kingsport facility. He immediately introduced himself as Bubba, and that is what we called him in our short time together. (I have refrained from using his nickname until now for fear of seeming too casual or familiar with him. I used his first name out of respect for him and your relationship to him. If that deference appears cold, for that I also apologize.).

He escorted us to the house and oversaw our efforts to investigate the nature of the initial experiments. He was cheerful. He was encouraging. He was also reassuring, both emotionally and physically. He provided a stability that made our efforts successful. He also made us a fantastic meal that he said was your recipe. I am honored to have experienced it. He spoke lovingly of his time at your elbow learning how to cook.

As the experiments were recreated, he rightfully perceived danger. He acted immediately and properly to shield us from that danger, and he saved our lives more than once. He lost his own life as a result of my rejection of his judgment. He wanted to leave the house. I refused. Minutes later, he was dead before my eyes. Had I heeded his warning, I’m positive he’d be alive today. That certainty never loses its full impact. I feel it each day.

I found myself recently again faced with danger and death. I can say clearly that my experience those many years ago affected my ability to respond to this recent incident, and that Bubba’s solid instincts and forthrightness were a direct influence, and by their example total devastation was avoided. Even now, decades later, he saved lives. And for that I thank him and you.

You no doubt heard of the widespread loss of life in the Mitchell building in New York City. Of the 249 people present that day, seven walked away, including, unfortunately, me. All of the 242 people who died would be alive if not for my egregious mistakes in 1986. Those decisions still resonate about me. I find myself a carrier of pain and death. I am resigned to this. Bubba was the first. He tragically was not the last.

I feel my survival is of no benefit except that I may continue to speak gratefully of your son. That is a rare solace to me in my long days of instability and fear.

I thank you for your time. I thank you for your son.

I am so sorry.

Sincerely,  
Katherine McMichaels  
Vincent Amfortas Psychiatric Clinic  
Manhattan, NY


End file.
